NASA ER-2 pilot Kirt Stallings waits inside the transport vehicle moments before boarding the airborne science aircraft at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. Outside the window, the aircraft is being readied for a high-altitude mission supporting the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment (GEMx), a multi-year NASA–U.S. Geological Survey campaign to map critical mineral resources across the Western United States. The GEMx team believes that undiscovered deposits of at least some of the 50 mineral commodities deemed essential to U.S. national security, to the tech industry, and to clean energy exist domestically, and modern mineral maps will support exploration by the private sector.
In 2025 alone, the ER-2 flew 36 science missions, collecting more than seven billion measurements over 200 flight hours, contributing to the largest airborne surface mineralogy dataset ever gathered in a single NASA campaign. For this mission, pilots flew at approximately 65,000 feet altitude, requiring them to wear specially designed pressure suits to safely operate in the thin atmosphere.
Image credit: NASA/Christopher LC Clark
Text credit: Darin L. Dinius
NASA ER-2飞行员柯特·斯托林斯（Kirt Stallings）于2025年8月21日（星期四）在加州爱德华兹的NASA阿姆斯特朗飞行研究中心登机前片刻，坐在运送车辆内待命。此时窗外，科研飞机正在进行飞行前的最后准备，即将执行一项高空飞行任务，以支持地质地球测绘实验（GEMx）。这是一项由NASA与美国地质调查局（USGS）联合开展的多年期行动，旨在绘制美国西部关键矿产资源的分布图。
GEMx团队认为，美国境内尚未发现的矿床中，可能存在部分被认定为对国家安全、科技产业和清洁能源至关重要的50种关键矿物资源。现代化的矿产分布图将有助于推动私营部门开展进一步的勘探工作。
仅在2025年，ER-2飞机就执行了36次科研飞行，累计飞行时间超过200小时，采集了超过70亿条观测数据，构成了NASA有史以来单次任务中规模最大的空基地表矿物光谱数据集。在此次任务中，飞行员需在约65,000英尺（近20,000米）的高空飞行，因此必须穿戴专门设计的加压飞行服，以确保在稀薄大气环境中的安全操作。
图片来源: NASA/Christopher LC Clark
文字来源: Darin L. Dinius
