Civil Air Patrol Collects 'Mosaic City' of Cloud Observations for PACE Satellite

In September, Civil Air Patrol members took up positions across New Orleans for a mission CAP had never tried before. They spent the day collecting a “mosaic city” of ground observations for NASA’s PACE satellite, giving the agency’s scientists something a satellite can’t capture on its own.

PACE stands for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem. NASA launched the satellite in February 2024 to study Earth’s oceans and atmosphere, including the clouds and tiny airborne particles that shape weather and climate. Satellites see a lot from orbit, but scientists still need people on the ground to check that what the instruments report matches reality.

To create a mosaic city, at least 50 volunteers have to be stationed at points across the city and record observations within 30 seconds of each other. Each observation is one pixel. NASA stitches these pixels together to create a larger image they can compare with the image captured by the PACE satellite passing overhead.

“Pulling off the New Orleans CAP-NASA PACE Pilot Data Collection Challenge took more than technology — it took a willingness to step into the unknown and figure it out together,” said Capt. Krystal Swain, CAP’s PACE Precision mission director. Civil Air Patrol members across Louisiana answered that challenge with “an incredible level of dedication.”

Swain added, “Louisiana Wing has a strong passion for the CAP/NASA missions, and our members were among the first to raise their hands, volunteer their time, and take on the challenge of attempting a city-scale mosaic test. Their commitment is a powerful example of what CAP members bring to these missions: curiosity, perseverance, teamwork, and an unwavering desire to serve.”

Swain, along with Capt. Jud Ergle, organized the volunteers on the ground. Fifty-four members from eight squadrons in the Louisiana Wing took part, from five locations within five minutes of the satellite overflight and one minute from their fellow units.

Volunteers were first briefed on the objectives and procedures for the data challenge before deploying to predetermined observation locations throughout the New Orleans area, including New Orleans proper. At their assigned locations, CAP members used the GLOBE Observer App to actively track the PACE satellite and monitor its approach in anticipation of the flyover.

During the live countdown, volunteers followed coordinated instructions to ensure their observations were collected at the designated time. As the PACE satellite passed overhead, members simultaneously recorded their observations and captured photographs through the GLOBE Observer App, creating a coordinated set of time-synchronized observations from locations across the city.

The mission was conducted under the incident command system (ICS), the same structure CAP uses for search and rescue and disaster response. NASA has singled out CAP’s use of ICS as one of the program’s greatest strengths. Scientists with the agency have published and presented nearly as much on how CAP volunteers organize these large, coordinated science missions as on the data itself.

Participants in the PACE pilot activity enjoyed the challenge.

“Today showed me that the sky is not the limit. … It is just the beginning,” said Cadet 2nd Lt. Hayden Taylor of the Louisiana Wing’s Tangipahoa Cadet Squadron.

“I’m really glad I got to be part of a NASA mission. I think it’s cool that the GLOBE Program values the data collected by people who aren’t actually part of NASA. It makes me feel like what we do on these missions really matters,” said Cadet Staff Sgt. Tyler Thompson of the wing’s Slidell Composite Squadron.

The New Orleans effort supports the PACE Cloud Challenge, run through NASA's GLOBE program. GLOBE stands for Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, and it invites students and the public to collect data that feeds directly into NASA Earth science.

“We want to be able to identify whether or not each pixel in a satellite image is a cloud or not, because if it’s cloudy, we want to determine the properties of that cloud, and if it's not cloudy, we want to determine the properties of the atmosphere and surface underneath the cloud,” explained Andy Sayer, Ph.D., of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, the project science lead for OCI atmospheres with NASA’s PACE Satellite mission.

The mosaic city challenge, held Sept. 19, is the latest chapter in a CAP/NASA partnership that has grown quickly.

According to Capt. Shannon Babb, CAP/NASA national coordinator, these missions have engaged more than 3,500 volunteers this year, reaching members in all 52 wings and about half of the organization’s overseas units. Over the program’s four years, more than 10,500 CAP volunteers have taken part, along with about 45,000 aerospace education members and classroom students.

Earlier missions have already reached the scientific community. Results from the Aviation Weather Mission, in which CAP volunteers tracked airplanes and contrails, were presented at the American Geophysical Union's AGU25 meeting in New Orleans in December 2025.

CAP's name also stays with the data. NASA encourages researchers who use data sets collected by CAP members to recognize the organization’s contribution in their published work.

Lessons learned during the PACE Pilot Data Collection Challenge are helping CAP and NASA design the PACE Precision Mission (the spring 2027 mission). For this mission, squadrons will field teams of at least 10 members on the weekends of:

Registration and training materials for the 2027 PACE Precision Mission will be available on Jan. 1, 2027.

Questions about the CAP/NASA program can be sent via email to [email protected].

Civil Air Patrol's Aerospace Education Program offers a wide range of opportunities in aerospace/STEM education for youth and adults alike, including CAP’s ongoing NASA missions.

Learn more about CAP and how you can shape not only your future, but those around you as well.