Some 70 Air National Guardsmen and two ski-equipped LC-130 Hercules aircraft from the 109th Airlift Wing at Stratton ANGB, N.Y., recently returned home from a four-day mission to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. The airmen flew to Greenland in late June to train for Operation Deep Freeze, a joint-service effort to provide support to the National Science Foundation. This is the fourth rotation to the Arctic region—only two more are left before the end of the 2014 season, states a July 3 release. The 109th Airlift Wing flies to Antarctica in the winter to support ODF. Weather can easily affect aircraft in the Arctic region, so the maintainers “primary mission is to fix the aircraft so they [can] fly their missions while here,” said MSgt. Joseph Deamer of the 109th Maintenance Group. “The other part of our mission is [to train] out of Raven Camp,” said Capt. Rachel Leimbach, the supervisor of flying for this rotation. “There is minimal science that we do at Raven, making it primarily a training site, which is how we get the crews ready for Antarctica,” she said.
NASA Boss: Race to Moon Has National Security Stakes
Sept. 15, 2026
NASA is pushing hard to get astronauts back to the moon by 2028—and the urgency is driven in no small part by the national security implications of doing so before China does, Administrator Jared Isaacman said Sept. 15.
