Actions for Effect of Clouds on Shuttle Imaging

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Effect of Clouds on Shuttle Imaging

Author
Short, David A.
Published
January 2005.
Physical Description
1 electronic document
Additional Creators
Lane, Robert E., Jr.
Online Version

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Unclassified, Unlimited, Publicly available.
Free-to-read Unrestricted online access
Summary
This report describes the results of the AMU's task for determining the effect of clouds on optical imaging of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle during its ascent phase from lift-off to Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) Separation. This effort was motivated by Recommendation R3.4-1 from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report. The AMU developed a 3-dimensional (3D) model to forecast the probability that at any time from lift-off to SRB separation, at least three of the ascent imaging cameras would have a view of the Shuttle unobstructed by cloud. Because current observational and modeling capabilities do not permit accurate forecasts of cloud morphology and location, the AMU simulated obscuration of the lines-of-sight (LOS) from a network of cameras to the Shuttle by idealized cloud-fields placed randomly within the 3D domain. For each random realization of numerous cloud-field scenarios the number of simultaneous views of the Shuttle was computed from the LOS data between lift-off and SRB separation. The percent of time with 3 simultaneous views was averaged from 100 random realizations of each scenario. Analyses of the percent of time viewable were made to determine its sensitivity to cloud amount, cloud base height, cloud thickness, cloud horizontal dimensions, and an upgrade of the camera network.
Other Subject(s)
Collection
NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) Collection.
Note
Document ID: 20060013427.
NASA/CR-2005-211538.
Rept-05-001.
Terms of Use and Reproduction
No Copyright.
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