The Lockheed Martin P-3B aircraft is ideally suited for low altitude heavy lift airborne science missions. The NASA P-3B has a long history of supporting cryosphere studies, and due to the long range of the aircraft, it is able to support ice sheet studies in both the Arctic and Antarctica polar regions. The P-3B has supported both active optical remote sensing missions using Lidar instruments such as the Airborne Terrain Mapper (ATM). The heavy lift capability of the airframe is able to support passive microwave instruments, such as NOAA’s Polarimetric Scanning Radiometer (PSR), NASA’s 2-DSTAR, and the JPL polarimetric scatterometer (POLSCAT) instruments.