My NASA SARP Summer Internship Experience
Are you ready for a fun flashback?!
Between my senior year of college and first year in graduate school almost a decade ago, I was fortunate to be selected to participate in the NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) summer internship. This internship is specifically geared towards students studying STEM (or STEM-adjacent) fields with an interest in Earth science research. My undergraduate degree is in hydrology, and I was headed to graduate school for atmospheric sciences, so this internship was the perfect fit for me and I was so grateful for the opportunity!
Buckle up…this is a long one! 🤓 (I hope you enjoy the photos; I had to dig out an old external hard drive to find them! I even included some photos of me in my pre-blogging and -grad school days!)
Interested in SARP 2024? All the information you need is at the end of this post!
NASA Student Airborne Research Program
A Summer Internship for College Students in Earth Sciences
NASA SARP is a hands-on summer internship experience that follows a scientific mission from instrument integration to final presentation and includes flying in a research aircraft to collect data. You may not know that I’m also a big aviation geek, which is another reason why this internship was perfect for me.
SARP takes place in southern California (when not in a pandemic)—two weeks are spent in Palmdale flying on a research aircraft out of the Armstrong Flight Research Center (formerly known as Dryden) and the final six weeks are spent in Irvine analyzing the data at the University of California, Irvine campus. There aren’t many places better than southern California during the summertime!
WEEKS 1—2: DATA COLLECTION VIA RESEARCH AIRCRAFT
Upon arrival in Palmdale, SARPians learn about each research area and select which group you want to be in for the duration of the program. My year, there were two air-focused groups (one air quality group and one called WAS—whole air sampling), one land-focused group, and one ocean-focused group. I lucked out with my first choice, which was the air quality group with faculty mentor Dr. Barry Lefer of the University of Houston (he’s now with the NASA Airborne Science Program). I believe the faculty mentors change somewhat each year but Dr. Donald Blake of UC Irvine remains the faculty mentor for the WAS group.
In a typical year, SARP students fly on the NASA DC-8 aircraft, which was completely modified for research purposes. It’s an airborne science laboratory! My SARP year did not fly on the DC-8; it was being used for a different mission at the same time, so we flew on the NASA P3-B, which is a much smaller research aircraft and only a couple of groups could go on each flight. Luckily, the air quality group was able to visit the DC-8 after it landed and right before we left Palmdale for Irvine, and the aircraft was in Boise during summer 2019 for the FIREX-AQ mission, so I got to tour it again with some of my colleagues! It was such a treat—and my SARP faculty mentor was here, too!
There were other aircraft in the hangar that we were able to check out: a modified 747 shuttle carrier aircraft (they’re nearly completely gutted on the inside to reduce weight; I’m sitting inside the cockpit of one in the photo above), the SOFIA observatory (a modified 747 with a retractable door on the side to reveal a telescope), Twin Otter research aircraft, and ER-2 high altitude laboratories (the pilots have to wear space suits, they fly so high!).
Everyone in the air quality group flew on the P-3B twice, which was definitely an interesting experience. My first flight was the least comfortable of the two: we flew primarily in the boundary layer just a few thousand feet off of the ground over the LA basin. That was when I learned to be very grateful that commercial planes fly way above the boundary layer, where it is much smoother. Trust me. You haven’t felt turbulence, lol. We did a few missed approaches at LA-area airports, and it was so fun to listen to the pilots chat with ATC (and each other). The purpose of the missed approaches was to get a vertical profile of the atmosphere (without landing at the airport!).
My second flight was much more comfortable. We flew over the California Central Valley to collect measurements above vineyards, dairies, and oil fields (oh my). We did a couple of spirals, which is basically another way to get a vertical profile: start high and literally circle your way down! It wasn’t as bad as it may sound. I think we also did a couple of parabolas on that flight, which is when the pilots tip the nose down so you feel momentarily weightless before they pull back up and you feel lots of extra G forces, lol. I got to sit in the cockpit when we landed back in Palmdale which was SO COOL!!! The pilots were hilarious.
WEEKS 3—8: DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH PROJECTS
After all the fun we had in Palmdale, the data analysis in Irvine was much less exciting in comparison. We basically just worked at our computers in a conference room all day every day, haha. The other groups had samples to process: the WAS group had collected air samples in canisters in flight and on the ground, the ocean group went out on a boat and collected samples in the ocean, and the land group also collected field samples. My group, the air quality group, got to learn new programs and calibrate data before diving into our projects! Very exciting.
It wasn’t all work, though! We SARPians took every opportunity to have as much fun as we could: went to the beach multiple times (including July 4th fireworks at Huntington Beach), spent a day in Disneyland, spent a day in Hollywood (via train), checked out the OC Fair, and saw Young the Giant live in concert (my first time). We also went on multiple educational field trips to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech in Pasadena, Griffith Observatory, and Palomar Observatory.
My research project involved something to do with ozone…that is, until I had what I’m pretty sure was my first panic attack/mental breakdown the day before my group was scheduled to give our presentations, and I changed my entire presentation. Lol. Not my best move, but I don’t recall the presentation being that bad. It wasn’t groundbreaking and worthy of a spot at an academic conference, but it was better than whatever I had been working on the previous seven weeks!
While my group worked on our presentations and went through them the night before, a small earthquake rattled us. I was standing at the front of the room practicing and the projector started shaking, but I don’t recall actually feeling any of the shaking. My groupmates figured it out pretty quickly but by then it was over! I consider that one my first earthquake—we had a big one that shook us here in Boise in March 2020!
Overall, SARP was an absolutely amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m so grateful I was able to be a part of it! I learned from and networked with a plethora of brilliant scientists, made friends that I still keep in touch with to this day, and gained confidence in myself as a scientist.
If you want to read even more details about my experience as it happened, I blogged it all in my second-ever blog that I have not shared until now: My SARP Summer. It’s fun to reread that every once in a while and not quite as embarrassing as I thought it would be (though still slightly embarrassing in areas…). My first-ever blog was the one I wrote the summer prior to SARP when I studied abroad in Italy. Technically, Cotton Cashmere Cat Hair is my fourth blog!
If you’re interested in applying for SARP 2024, the application deadline is Wednesday, January 31, 2024!
Find more information about SARP below and feel free to ask any questions about my experience in the comments or shoot me an email! (Use the email listed below for program-specific questions!)
NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP) 2024
The NASA Airborne Science Program announces opportunities for rising senior undergraduates with STEM backgrounds to apply for participation in the 16th annual NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP 2024). This is a paid 8-week summer internship program (June to August) in Earth system science.
We are seeking full-time students who will have the opportunity to acquire hands-on research experience in all aspects of an airborne scientific campaign. Students will work in multi-disciplinary teams to study surface, atmospheric, or oceanographic processes. Participants will fly onboard a research aircraft and assist in the operation of instruments to sample and measure atmospheric gases and aerosols and to image land and water surfaces in multiple spectral bands. Along with airborne data collection, students will participate in taking measurements at field sites. Each student will develop a research project from the data collected and will deliver final presentations on their results.
Outstanding faculty and staff for this program will be drawn from several universities and NASA centers, as well as from NASA flight operations and engineering personnel.
SARP participants will receive a stipend, a travel allowance, and free housing and local transportation during the 8-week program.
NOTE: Prospective applicants must complete the application (including all short response questions) that can be found on the SARP website at: https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/early-career-opportunities/student-airborne-research-program by the deadline of Wednesday, January 31, 2024.
*Applicants must be US citizens*
Watch a video about the program:
https://youtu.be/o56_07rsyBYFor more information and to apply:
https://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/early-career-opportunities/student-airborne-research-programEmail questions to:
nasasarp@gmail.com