OPERATIONAL OVERVIEW OF THE NASA GTE CITE-3 AIRBORNE INSTRUMENT INTERCOMPARISONS FOR SULFUR-DIOXIDE, HYDROGEN-SULFIDE, CARBONYL SULFIDE,DIMETHYL SULFIDE, AND CARBON-DISULFIDE

This paper reports the overall experimental design and gives a brief o verview of results from the third airborne Chemical Instrumentation Te st and Evaluation (CITE 3) mission conducted as part of the National A eronautics and Space Administration's Global Tropospheric Experiment. The primary objective of CITE 3 was to evaluate the capability of inst rumentation for airborne measurements of ambient concentrations of SO2 , H2S, CS2, dimethyl sulfide, and carbonyl sulfide. Ancillary measurem ents augmented the intercomparison data in order to address the second ary objective of CITE 3 which was to address specific issues related t o the budget and photochemistry Of tropospheric sulfur species. The CI TE 3 mission was conducted on NASA's Wallops Flight Center Electra air craft and included a ground-based intercomparison of sulfur standards and intercomparison/sulfur science flights conducted from the NASA Wal lops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia, followed by flights fr om Natal, Brazil. Including the transit flights, CITE 3 included 16 fl ights encompassing approximately 96 flight hours.