Tropospheric wind monitoring during day-of-launch operations for National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration's Space Shuttle Program

The Environments Group at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Marshall Space Flight Center monitors the winds aloft at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in support of the Space Shuttle Program day of launch operations. Assessment of tropospheric winds is used to support the ascent phase of launch. Three systems at KSC are used to generate independent tropospheric wind profiles prior to launch; 1) high resolution jimsphere balloon system, 2) 50-MHz Doppler Radar Wind Profiler (DRWP) and 3) low resolution radiosonde system. Data from 50-MHz DRWP and low resolution radiosonde system are used as an independent wind source to verify the validity of the jimsphere balloon data. To assess spatial and temporal wind variability during launch countdown each jimsphere profile is compared against a design wind database to ensure wind change does not violate wind change criteria. Evaluations of wind profiles are reported to personnel at Johnson Space Center.