The Air Force’s 45th Weather Squadron (45 WS) provides operational weather services to the Eastern Range (ER) and the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), located on Florida’s east-central coast (near the center of maximum lightning activity in the United States). These services include support to ground operations and launches by the Department of Defense (DOD), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and commercial customers. Weather support is provided for approximately 40 launches per year, including: Space Shuttle; Titan, Atlas, and Delta rockets; and Trident ballistic missiles. To accomplish this mission, the 45 WS is assisted by various organizations, such as the Range Technical Services Contractor (RTSC), currently Computer Sciences Raytheon (CSR), and the tri-agency Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) which is under the direction of the KSC Weather Office.
This paper presents an overview of the different sections within the 45 WS and documents the different duties required to provide weather support for space launch activities. These duties include a continuous weather watch for resource protection and prelaunch processing, launch countdown weather evaluations required to advise the Launch Director of whether or not weather conditions are safe for launch, and support for special safety and engineering requirements to successfully launch from Florida’s east coast. It also discusses the climatology of the area, the launch vehicle susceptibility to the weather, and the duties of staff meteorologists to ensure state-of-the-art weather systems are in place to accurately evaluate launch-critical weather parameters. The roles of the meteorologists in two vital organizational partners, CSR and the AMU, are also presented.
The paper is structured as "a day in the life" of a space launch meteorologist from six different view points: (1) launch weather officer support, including special ground processing and launch countdown support; (2) range duty forecaster, with emphasis on weather warning and advisories for specific locations on KSC, Cape Canaveral Air Station, and Patrick AFB for resource protection; (3) contractor weather support, with emphasis on special observational requirements; (4) aviation support, including Shuttle ferry-flight; (5) staff meteorologist, including weather system evaluation, procurement, installation, and checkout; and (6) AMU support for systems applications and technical transition to improve launch safety and availability.
The 8th Conference on Aviation, Range, and Aerospace Meteorology