With the completion of the August 26, 2017 research flight - ALL ORACLES Level 1 flight/science requirements have been met! From an experiment standpoint, this means all baseline requirements for collecting data are fulfilled. Among the list of requirements included a minimum number of flight hours along "routine" tracks - these tracks, predetermined prior to deployment, are routinely sampled such that regional and climate models can be validated. All of these routine flights have a set number of hours for high-altitude remote sensing, in-situ cloud sampling, and aerosol/dust/smoke plume sampling. The overall minimum number of required flight hours was also met.

The completion of these requirements is BIG. For next year's deployment, this means considerably less stress in the event there are more aircraft issues as well as added flexibility toward the completion of the Level 2 science objectives.