NASA and University Partners Will Fly Over Colorado Farms to Measure Pollution Starting October 1

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Colorado State University, and Boston University will fly a research aircraft over Colorado farmland starting October 1, 2026, to measure agricultural pollutants including methane and ammonia, NASA said.

The mission is called FarmFlux. According to NASA, the aircraft will carry more than a dozen sensors to measure ozone, methane, ammonia, particulates, and other pollutants rising from agricultural lands and animal farms. Local coverage of the flights placed the Colorado operations in Weld County, with the deployment running through October 20, 2026, and identified the aircraft as a Dynamic Aviation A200. The Colorado flights are the first in the series. NASA describes agricultural emissions as an important and understudied part of Earth's land and atmosphere systems, which is the stated reason for the mission.

Additional flights are scheduled over farmland near Amarillo, Texas, from late October to early November, NASA said. For the March to July 2027 growing season, a NASA P-3 Orion aircraft is scheduled to fly over the Midwest and California's Central Valley, with a focus on croplands. What the data will be used for beyond the research record is not stated in the mission materials.

Full mission details are at espo.nasa.gov/farmflux.

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