A photo of a NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft with the AVIRIS instrument installed. | Image: NASA
NASA and the US Geological Survey plan to deploy aircraft to spot critical minerals buried across the southwest US. They’ll take to the skies to map the minerals, which are crucial to the Biden administration’s plans to build up American clean energy industries.
GEMx is the name of the joint research effort, which will launch with $16 million in funding made possible through the bipartisan infrastructure law, which passed last year. Over the next five years, NASA’s ER-2 and Gulfstream V aircraft will fly over parts of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico to collect data that could point to where critical mineral resources are most abundant.
Both aircraft will carry a powerful instrument, NASA’s Airborne Visible / Infrared Imaging…