The Natural Terrestrial Environment (NTE) Group at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) serves National Aeronautic and Space Administration by developing NTE design criteria guidelines and providing interpretations for the development of aerospace vehicles. In addition, it supports pre-launch wind loads assessment and mission analysis scenarios for the Space Shuttle program, and also maintains an extensive data base of NTE data applicable to aerospace vehicle activities. The NTE is defined as the ambient atmosphere that extends from the ground to the minimum altitude of orbiting spacecraft (~90km). NTE design criteria guidelines developed by the group include design philosophy and guidance relative to aerospace vehicle design, mission planning and operations trade studies. They are based on statistics and models that establish risk levels of atmospheric variables. Space Shuttle program support includes the monitoring of winds aloft on the day of launch, and design mission analysis programs that are used to establish program risks relative to assigned atmospheric constraints. The NTE data base consists of surface weather observations including temperature, pressure, wind speed and direction, visibility, relative humidity, cloud cover, thunderstorms/lightning, etc., as well as profiles of wind and atmospheric thermodynamic variables including temperature, pressure and density from the surface to the thermosphere
The 8th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology