Science in the stratosphere – the mission to measure our atmosphere

Earlier this year, Cairns played host to a remarkable aircraft on an important mission. Dubbed HALO (high altitude long range), the plane, a highly modified Gulfstream G550, flew for up to nine hours at a time over the tropics from Cairns and reached heights of up to 15km above the Pacific Ocean.

HALO, a joint initiative by German environment and climate research bodies for the German Aerospace Centre (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, or DLR), was in Australia as part of the Chemistry of the Atmosphere: Field Experiment (CAFE) team’s CAFE-Pacific research project. Its goal: to collect detailed measurements of the atmosphere to better understand the chemistry of climate.