The New Weather Radar for America's Space Program in Florida: An Overview

A new weather radar is being acquired for use in support of America's space program at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, NASA Kennedy Space Center, and Patrick AFB on the east coast of central Florida. This radar replaces the modified WSR 74C at Patrick AFB that has been in use since 1984. The new radar is a Radtec TDR 43 250. Significant features of the new Radtec unit not available on the WSR-74C include Doppler and dual polarization capability and an off-center feed antenna for significantly reduced side lobes. The new radar is installed and is currently undergoing testing and parallel operational comparison with the WSR-74C and WSR-88D/Melbourne. After operational acceptance, currently projected for Oct 09, the WSR-74C will be decommissioned. This paper will summarize the main features of the new radar, including the selection of its location, and discuss why those features were chosen to best support the Space Program in Florida. Several months of use of the new radar should have occurred by the conference and those initial experiences will be summarized.

Two other related abstracts on this new radar are being submitted to this conference, one detailing the scan strategy customized to best support the space program mission, and one outlining a temperature profile adaptive scan strategy being developed to further improve use of the new radar.