The team will survey sites in Central America to unearth archaeological secrets and preserve biological and cultural diversity and resources. From there, they will head to South America's Patagonia ice fields and Antarctica to conduct topographic surveys to better gauge the effect of climate change.

The group will use an all-weather imaging tool, the Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar, developed and managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Carried aboard the NASA DC-8 laboratory, AirSar can penetrate clouds and collect data at night. Its high-resolution sensors operate at multiple wavelengths and can "see" beneath treetops and through thin sand and dry snow pack. The DC-8 is one of the NASA Airborne Sciences aircraft from the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

A Flying Laboratory: AIRSAR instrument panels are mounted aboard a modified NASA DC-8 aircraft - During data collection, the plane flies at 8 kilometers over the average terrain height at a velocity of 215 meters per second.

Much of the archaeological evidence needed to understand Pre-Columbian societies in Central America comes from features on the landscape. Difficult terrain and logistics have limited ground data collection.

AirSar is expected to detect signs of ancient civilizations hidden beneath the forest. Its images will shed insights into the way modern humans interact with their landscape, and how ancient peoples lived and what became of their civilizations.

AirSar's potential for archaeological applications was first demonstrated, at Angkor, Cambodia, where it revealed more detailed images than those obtained from radar gathered on a previous Space Shuttle flight.