Start Date
4-1987 8:00 AM
Description
The Kennedy Space Center is located in an area of the highest frequency of thunderstorms and lightning activity in the United States. Outdoor operations involve space vehicles, towers, explosives, fuel storage, aerial/buried cabling which connects widely distributed sensitive electronic and mechanical equipment; all subject to critical schedules making lightning a serious hazard. For this reason KSC has through the years conducted extensive studies of lightning phenomena, its characteristics and effects, and methods of protection against it as well as methods to locate/ forecast thunderstorms/lightning. An ongoing program with the Eastern Space Missile Center (ESMC} weather group has resulted in one of the world's most advanced weather forecasting facilities, consisting of the Meteorological Interactive Data Display System (MIDDS) which provides access to the world's meteorological data and weather satellites as well as local radar, sounding systems, and expanded mesonetwork (50 stations). A five year weather forecasting enhancement program is ongoing and will add additional systems such as clear air doppler radar, volumetric scanning radar techniques, acoustical sounding systems, improved lightning locating systems, etc.
Plans are underway to transfer the technology represented by the lightning (and atmospheric science} research facilities and capabilities at the KSC to outside users in other governmental agencies, private industry, as well as the academic community. Rocket triggered lightning is being used to demonstrate the feasibility of establishing, as a permanent facility and long term cost sharing, an Atmospheric Science Field Laboratory (ASFL}. KSC expertise in the areas of lightning research, protection and hazard detection, and thunderstorm forecasting insure the greatest possible success for this project. Results from previous programs and data from a lightning event which occurred during the STS-7 flow will be presented to demonstrate the adequacy of the present day lightning protection and measuring system to protect personnel, vehicle and ground equipment, as well as to rapidly assess damage due to a lightning event.
Atmospheric Science Field Laboratory - A Feasibility Study
The Kennedy Space Center is located in an area of the highest frequency of thunderstorms and lightning activity in the United States. Outdoor operations involve space vehicles, towers, explosives, fuel storage, aerial/buried cabling which connects widely distributed sensitive electronic and mechanical equipment; all subject to critical schedules making lightning a serious hazard. For this reason KSC has through the years conducted extensive studies of lightning phenomena, its characteristics and effects, and methods of protection against it as well as methods to locate/ forecast thunderstorms/lightning. An ongoing program with the Eastern Space Missile Center (ESMC} weather group has resulted in one of the world's most advanced weather forecasting facilities, consisting of the Meteorological Interactive Data Display System (MIDDS) which provides access to the world's meteorological data and weather satellites as well as local radar, sounding systems, and expanded mesonetwork (50 stations). A five year weather forecasting enhancement program is ongoing and will add additional systems such as clear air doppler radar, volumetric scanning radar techniques, acoustical sounding systems, improved lightning locating systems, etc.
Plans are underway to transfer the technology represented by the lightning (and atmospheric science} research facilities and capabilities at the KSC to outside users in other governmental agencies, private industry, as well as the academic community. Rocket triggered lightning is being used to demonstrate the feasibility of establishing, as a permanent facility and long term cost sharing, an Atmospheric Science Field Laboratory (ASFL}. KSC expertise in the areas of lightning research, protection and hazard detection, and thunderstorm forecasting insure the greatest possible success for this project. Results from previous programs and data from a lightning event which occurred during the STS-7 flow will be presented to demonstrate the adequacy of the present day lightning protection and measuring system to protect personnel, vehicle and ground equipment, as well as to rapidly assess damage due to a lightning event.
Comments
No other information or file available for this session.