Aerospace Meteorology: An Overview of Some Key Environmental Elements

Vaughan, William W.; Johnson, Dale L.

doi:10.5028/jatm.v5i1.188

ABSTRACT:

The natural terrestrial environment plays a significant role in the design and operation of aerospace vehicles (space vehicles and rockets) and in the associated integrity of aerospace systems and elements. Addressed herein are some of the key vehicle and environment areas of concern plus "lessons learned" that have been identified over a number of years. Many of these aerospace meteorology related events occurred during the development and interpretation of natural environment inputs, especially those of terrestrial environment, used in the design and development of the Saturn Apollo and Space Shuttle vehicles plus associated mission operations. Background is given regarding the actions needed to avoid having to re-learn these lessons.

KEYWORDS:
Aerospace meteorology; Launch vehicle development; Mission operations

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REFERENCES

Bellue, D.G., Boyd, B.F., Vaughan, W.W., Garner, T., Weems, J.W., Madura, J.T. and Herring, H.C. 2006, "Weather Support to the Space Shuttle An Overview: paper Number AIAA-2006-0684", 44^th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV.
Blair, J.C., Ryan, R.S., Schutzenhofer, L.A. and Humphries, W.R. 2001, "Launch Vehicle Design Process: Characterization, Technical Integration and Lessons Learned" NASA/TP-2001-210992, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL.
Johnson, D.L., 2008, "Terrestrial Environment (Climatic) Criteria Guidelines for Use in Aerospace Vehicle Development", NASA/TM-2008-215633, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL, from http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20090022159
» http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20090022159
Pearson, S.D., Vaughan, W.W., Batts, G.W. and Jasper, G.L., 1996, "Importance of the Natural Terrestrial Environment With Regard to Advanced Launch Vehicle Design and Development", NASA TM 108511, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL.
Ryan, R., Blair, J., Townsend, J. and Verderaime, V., 1996, "Working on the Boundaries: Philosophies and Practices of the Design Process", NASA TP-3642, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL.
Vaughan, W.W., 2010, "Guide to Reference and Standard Atmosphere Models", AIAA-G-003C-2010, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Reston, VA, from http://www.aiaa.org
» http://www.aiaa.org
Vaughan, W.W. and Johnson, D.L., 2010, "Aerospace Meteorology: Some Lessons Learned", Proceeding of the 14^th Conference on Aviation, Range and Aerospace Meteorology (ARAM), American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA.
Vaughan, W.W., Johnson, D.L., Pearson, S.D. and Batts G.W., 1997, "The Role of Aerospace Meteorology in the Design, Development and Operation of New Advance Launch Vehicles", Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on Aviation, Range and Aerospace Meteorology, American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA.

Publication Dates

Publication in this collection
Jan-Mar 2013

History

Received
06 Nov 2012
Accepted
14 Dec 2012

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

[1] Bellue, D.G., Boyd, B.F., Vaughan, W.W., Garner, T., Weems, J.W., Madura, J.T. and Herring, H.C. 2006, "Weather Support to the Space Shuttle An Overview: paper Number AIAA-2006-0684", 44^th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV.

[2] Blair, J.C., Ryan, R.S., Schutzenhofer, L.A. and Humphries, W.R. 2001, "Launch Vehicle Design Process: Characterization, Technical Integration and Lessons Learned" NASA/TP-2001-210992, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL.

[3] Johnson, D.L., 2008, "Terrestrial Environment (Climatic) Criteria Guidelines for Use in Aerospace Vehicle Development", NASA/TM-2008-215633, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL, from http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20090022159
» http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20090022159

[4] Pearson, S.D., Vaughan, W.W., Batts, G.W. and Jasper, G.L., 1996, "Importance of the Natural Terrestrial Environment With Regard to Advanced Launch Vehicle Design and Development", NASA TM 108511, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL.

[5] Ryan, R., Blair, J., Townsend, J. and Verderaime, V., 1996, "Working on the Boundaries: Philosophies and Practices of the Design Process", NASA TP-3642, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, AL.

[6] Vaughan, W.W., 2010, "Guide to Reference and Standard Atmosphere Models", AIAA-G-003C-2010, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Reston, VA, from http://www.aiaa.org
» http://www.aiaa.org

[7] Vaughan, W.W. and Johnson, D.L., 2010, "Aerospace Meteorology: Some Lessons Learned", Proceeding of the 14^th Conference on Aviation, Range and Aerospace Meteorology (ARAM), American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA.

[8] Vaughan, W.W., Johnson, D.L., Pearson, S.D. and Batts G.W., 1997, "The Role of Aerospace Meteorology in the Design, Development and Operation of New Advance Launch Vehicles", Proceedings of the Seventh Conference on Aviation, Range and Aerospace Meteorology, American Meteorological Society, Boston, MA.

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