Commit
to Launch: An ETE "Weather-or-Not?" Good Idea
Situation
Ask your students to predict the weather for an upcoming Space Shuttle
launch. They will be using the ETE "Weather-or-Not?" module
and applying the NASA Space Shuttle weather criteria to the:
1. Shuttle
launch
2. Emergency landings at off-site locations
3. End-of-mission landing criteria
They
will be using the actual weather guidelines for Space Shuttle launches.
Their weather outlooks should begin at launch minus 5 days. These
should include weather trends and their possible effects on launch
day.
In addition
to the sites suggested in the "Weather or Not?" module,
you can print out any of the pages provided at the links below,
or you can give the students the URLs and have them visit these
sites for themselves.
What
Students Will Need to Know
A list of NASA
Space Shuttle Launches. From this site, students can
access information about Shuttle launches from 1981 to the present
and into the future from the Kennedy Space Center. They can also
get information about Orbiter Vehicles or Pre STS-1 missions or
access the JSC's Shuttle Image Library, Ames Graphical Image Index,
or the Dryden's Shuttle Landing Archive.
NASA
weather instrumentation. The equipment used by the forecaster
to develop the downrange and launch clearance forecast are located
here.
Weather
criteria for launch, contingency landings, and end-of-mission. The
following are excerpted from a Kennedy
Space Center news release for October 4, 1995.
Space
Shuttle Weather Launch Commit Criteria
Contingency
Landing Criteria
Weather conditions for a Return To Launch Site Abort (RTLS) or
for emergency landings at other off-site locations.
End-of-Mission
Landing Weather Criteria
How
to Tell When the Data Was Gathered
Satellites take many pictures. How do you know you are looking at
the most recent one? How long ago was the picture taken? Most satellite
images have the time written on them, but it is in a form that may
be difficult to read. Here is a guide to finding the time.
As you
know, there are many different time zones around the globe. The
one generally used on satellite images is universal time (U.T.),
also known as zulu time (Z), and Greenwich mean time (GMT). All
three refer to the time in London along the Greenwich Meridian.
When a satellite picture is taken, it is logged according to traditional
military notation for time (that is, the 24-hundred hour notation).
So if you see a picture taken at 0830 U.T., this means it was taken
at 8:30 a.m. universal time. You can use a chart to convert a U.T.,
Z, or GMT time to the zone where you live.
To convert
to standard time in North America, subtract the appropriate number
of hours from the chart below. To convert to zones outside North
America, use the U.S. Naval Observatory's World
Time Zones page.
