Edward Teets, Jr., Dryden Flight Research Center, Propulsion and Aerodynamics Branch

Abstract: This presentation will describe several uses of data. Originally used for post-flight atmospheric reconstruction (or a Best Estimate Atmosphere (BEA)) for the Air Force and DARPA HTV-2 hypersonic glide body program, it became apparent after several years that other flight programs at Dryden could benefit from these data sets.

To support these programs, unique sets of tools were developed to extract, analyze and display the high-resolution atmospheric forecast and observation data. GEOS-5 data is now commonly used for all the NASA supported hypersonic programs operating at very-high altitudes and traversing great distances. These include the HTV-2, X-51 and the AHW vehicles, as well as NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) as a flight planning tool to estimate water vapor loading, on-going sonic boom studies and as a simplified air-data calibration tool for the NASA Dryden Global Hawks. Future projects that are considering using GEOS-5 as a source for their high-resolution atmospheric data will also be discussed.