June 23, 2025
Garon Clark/NASA
NASA planes, including the P-3 Orion pictured above, will be flying low over the Philadelphia region as part of its Student Airborne Research Program for undergrads.
Planes may be seen flying unusually low in the skies in the Philadelphia region over the next several days, but there's no cause for alarm. The flights are part of a NASA research program that helps train the next generation of scientists.
NASA is conducting low-altitude flights near Philly, Baltimore and the Virginia cities of Howell, Hampton and Richmond through Thursday. The flights began Sunday, and are part of an eight-week summer internship program that trains rising college seniors in field research.
The internship, called the Student Airborne Research Program, or SARP, involves airborne data collection. Pilots fly the planes low to the ground along airport runways so students and their mentors can collect samples near the surface. They also conduct maneuvers like vertical spirals of 1,000 to 10,000 feet and hover above power plants, landfills and urban areas.
People on the ground might spy the P-3 Orion, a four-engine turboprop aircraft that operates out of the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. It is equipped with specialty windows and ports to support scientific research into meteorology, soil science, atmospheric chemistry, oceanography and other disciplines. A King Air B200 plane, which NASA contracts from Dynamic Aviation, will fly at the same time as the P-3 Orion.
After its East Coast missions wind down, the SARP crew will move to California. Those flights will soar across the Los Angeles Basin, Salton Sea and Central Valley between Sunday, June 29, and Wednesday, July 2.
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