A Decade of Weather Technology Delivered to America's Space Program by the Applied Meteorology Unit q

摘要

The Applied Meteorology Unit (AMU) is a unique joint venture of NASA, the Air Force and the National Weather Service (NWS). The AMU develops, evaluates and transitions new technology and techniques to improve weather support to spaceport operations at the Eastern Range and Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Its primary customers are the 45th Weather Squadron (45WS) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), the Spaceflight Meteorology Group (SMG) at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, and the National Weather Service (NWS) Office in Melbourne, FL. Its products are used to support NASA's Shuttle and ELV programs as well as Department of Defense and commercial launches from the Eastern Range. Shuttle support has highest priority and includes landing sites elsewhere in the US and overseas. This paper presents a brief overview of the AMU and how it is tasked by its customers to provide high priority products and services followed by a sampling of products delivered over the last ten years that are currently in operational use. Each example describes the problem to be solved, the solution provided, and the operational benefits of implementing the solution.