NASA NTRS · 20160005196
No abstract available
Explore connections, maps & timelines
Gallagher, Dennis. 2016-04-14. Space Weather. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20160005196
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.
KEEP EXPLORING
FACT is a software program that provides important information about winter weather operations to airline dispatchers and airport personnel. FACT has a "quad" design and shows various maps, text, and tabular information. It also has a team messaging capability. It is meant to be used by airline dispatchers and airport personnel to manage winter storms.
On any given day, traffic flow managers must often rely on past experience and intuition when developing traffic flow management initiatives that mitigate imbalances between the aircraft demand and the weather impacted airport capacity. The goal of this study was to build on recent efforts to apply data mining classification and clustering algorithms to vast archives of historical weather and air traffic data to identify patterns and past decisions that can ultimately inform day-of-operations decision-making. More specifically, this study identified similar weather impacted days at select U.S. airports, and analyzed the traffic management initiatives implemented on these representative days. The identification of the similar days was accomplished by applying a decision tree algorithm to the hourly Localized Aviation Model Output Statistics Program observations and the arrival delays for Newark Liberty International Airport. The branches from the trained decision tree were subsequently pruned to identify four weather conditions that resulted in medium to high delays for the arrivals scheduled to Newark in 2012. Using these weather conditions, four, daily airport-level Weather Impacted Traffic Index values were calculated using the Localized Aviation Model Output Statistics Program observations and the 2012 scheduled arrival counts from the FAAs Aviation System Performance Metric system. The four, daily Weather Impacted Traffic Index values for 2012 were subsequently clustered using an Expectation Maximization clustering algorithm, and nine unique types of weather days at Newark were identified. By far the most prominent type of day at Newark was a day associated with relatively good weather conditions, where there was little convective activity, winds were low, ceilings and visibility were high and there was little precipitation. Moderate levels of convective activity characterized the next most prominent type of day. Days with persistently high winds or low ceiling and visibility levels were relatively rare in 2012. Lastly, the frequency at which Ground Delay Programs, Ground Stops and Miles-in-Trail restrictions were implemented on each of the typical types of days at Newark were analyzed. Based on the results, it does appear as if the usage of Miles-in-Trail, Ground Delay Program and Ground Stop restrictions correlates well with the severity of the weather associated with each unique type of weather impacted day at Newark. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that it is feasible to use historical weather and air traffic archives to provide guidance on the types of traffic management restrictions to implement in response to the weather conditions impacting an airport.
Lightning occurrence too close to a NASA LSP or future SLS program launch vehicle in flight would have disastrous results. The sensitive electronics on the vehicle could be damaged to the point of causing an anomalous flight path and ultimate destruction of the vehicle and payload.According to 45th Weather Squadron (45 WS) Lightning Launch Commit Criteria (LLCC), a vehicle cannot launch if lightning is within 10 NM of its pre-determined flight path. The 45 WS Launch Weather Officers (LWOs) evaluate this LLCC for their launch customers to ensure the safety of the vehicle in flight. Currently, the LWOs conduct a subjective analysis of the distance between lightning and the flight path using data from different display systems. A 3-D display in which the lightning data and flight path are together would greatly reduce the ambiguity in evaluating this LLCC. It would give the LWOs and launch directors more confidence in whether a GO or NO GO for launch should be issued. When lightning appears close to the path, the LWOs likely err on the side of conservatism and deem the lightning to be within 10 NM. This would cause a costly delay or scrub. If the LWOs can determine with a strong level of certainty that the lightning is beyond 10 NM, launch availability would increase without compromising safety of the vehicle, payload or, in the future, astronauts.The AMU was tasked to conduct a market research of commercial, government, and open source software that might be able to ingest and display the 3-D lightning data from the KSC Lightning Mapping Array (LMA), the 45th Space Wing Weather Surveillance Radar (WSR), the National Weather Service in Melbourne Weather Surveillance Radar 1988 Doppler (WSR-88D), and the vehicle flight path data so that all can be visualized together. To accomplish this, the AMU conducted Internet searches for potential software candidates and interviewed software developers.None of the available off-the-shelf software had a 3-D capability that could display all of the data in a single visualization. The AMU determined there are two viable software packages that could satisfy the 45 WS requirement with further development and recommends the KSC Weather Office follow-up with both organizations to request development costs.