Weather forecasting support for AASE-2

Abstract

The AFEAS Contract and NASA Grant were awarded to Penn State in order to obtain real-time weather forecasting support for the NASA AASE-II Project, which was conducted between October 1991 and March 1992. Because of the special weather sensitivities of the NASA ER-2 aircraft, AASE-II planners felt that public weather forecasts issued by the National Weather Service would not be adequate for mission planning purposes. A likely consequence of resorting to that medium would have been that scientists would have had to be at work by 4 AM day after day in the hope that the aircraft could fly, only to be frustrated by a great number of 'scrubbed' missions. Thus, the Pennsylvania State University was contracted to provide real-time weather support to the AASE-II mission.