I. Technology Roadmap -- Timeline and Priorities
The
Sounding Rocket Working Group continues to be encouraged by the
Technology
Roadmap developed by the Sounding Rocket Program Office (SRPO) at
Wallops. We are confident that such new technological
thrusts will advance important new avenues for scientific exploration,
discoveries, and understanding. Major
items on the list that hold particular promise include the High
Altitude
Sounding Rocket, the Oriole rocket, the mesosphere dart-like payload,
and the
ability to routinely carry out recovery of high altitude telescope
payloads at
Wallops.
What
is not at all clear, however, is how the timelines and priorities for
these
particular technology initiatives are established.
How is it decided which of these so very
useful new technology items will be done first? In
fact, it is not clear how a cost benefit analysis
might be conducted
to articulate the trade studies to both the users and general science
community. Certainly, some discussion of
this point is needed.
We
envision that the
items on the Technology Roadmap might be
divided into three categories:
1) General
technology items needed to maintain the present payload and operational
capabilities.
2) New technology items which are of modest cost
and which can
generally be covered within the annual program resources available for
new
technology.
3) New technology items for which augmentation of
new funds is
needed and for which the timescale for development requires an
investment over several years.
Certainly for item 1,
we
presume the SRPO will continue to invest its resources soundly to
maintain the
present capabilities. It would appear
that here, the role of the SRWG is to provide input and feedback on
such
developments. Items 2 and 3, however,
represent areas where there is significant “trade space” and where the
SRWG
believes it could provide meaningful input, particularly as the working
group
represents the larger user community.
For some trades, particularly where new resources are needed, we note
that the NASA HQ Science Advisory committees will also be consulted.
To
summarize, we would like
clarification on how the timelines and priorities are established for
the work
to carried out on the SRPO Technology Roadmap. In
particular, we urge that communication channels
be established for
user input on the “big ticket” items, both from the SRWG representing
the user
community as well as from the greater scientific community which NASA’s
sounding rocket program serves.
II.
“Telescope” Payload Recovery at Wallops
The
SRWG appreciates the response from the SRPO to our finding from the
June, 2003
meeting in which we discussed the need to develop technologies to
provide for
the recovery of high flying rockets from Wallops. However,
the response focused on innovative
air recovery and mentioned that advanced, new water recovery techniques
for
heavy, high flying payloads could not be funded until 2009. We note that Wallops presently can routinely
carry out water recovery of standard, 17 inch geophysics payloads
launched from
Wallops. We thus feel the need to
revisit the previous finding with an emphasis on developing
capabilities for
water recovery of such “modest” payloads that carry
astronomy/planetary/solar
telescopes instead. Since these
telescope payloads already include protection for land re-entry, what
would it
take to adapt them for water recovery?
As stated in our previous finding, this
effort would have
both near and long term benefits. In the near term, recovery of
telescope
payloads at Wallops would enable the use of Black Brant and Oriole
delivery
systems, with high flying performance envelopes that preclude their use
at
White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). This
would allow an immediate factor of two gain in observing time over that
of
astronomy/solar payloads currently launched on BBIX's.
In the long term, such systems could then
serve as a model for the development of a recovery technology for High
Altitude
Sounding Rocket (HASR) payloads.
The
SRWG encourages NSROC and the Sounding Rocket Project Office to rapidly
mature
the development of recovery systems for telescope-borne payloads for
flights
from the Wallops Flight Facility.
III. High Altitude Sounding Rocket
The
SRWG once again salutes the Sounding Rocket Program Office for their
continued
efforts to develop the High Altitude Sounding Rocket (HASR). As discussed previously, such a vehicle would
provide a significant new science exploration tool, both because of its
higher
altitude (and thus longer flight time) and because of its larger
diameter. The SRWG realizes that
circumstances beyond
the control of Wallops limit the pace of development.
Nonetheless, the SRWG strongly believes that
a robust, innovative sounding rocket program depends on bringing new
capabilities, such as the HASR, to fruition and urges Wallops to
continue their
efforts to develop the HASR at whatever pace resources will allow.
IV.
Payload Events Set by GPS
The
SRWG congratulates NSROC and the Sounding Rocket Program Office for
bringing
the GPS event module into service as quickly as it has.
The module has great promise for improving
the efficiency and accuracy of observations across a wide variety of
disciplines. It will allow experimenters
to more precisely coordinate their observations and instrument
actuation,
recovery system initiation, etc. with the actual rocket trajectory,
which, in
turn, provides for more efficient use of the flight time available. For example, rather than setting events that
rely on the predicted altitudes (either for upleg or downleg) of the
2-sigma
high and low nominal trajectories, the GPS event module will enable the
events
to occur precisely at the desired altitude, regardless of the
dispersion in the
actual flight profile. In many cases,
this could afford up to 30 seconds (or even more) of additional
observation
time. We look forward to the widespread
implementation of such event timers in the near future.
V.
Sounding Rocket User’s Guide
The
SRWG strongly suggests that the Sounding Rocket Program Handbook be
updated
more frequently. The version of the
Handbook currently available on the Wallops web site was last updated
in July
2001, and some parts of the document may be even older.
We feel that the Handbook is a valuable
reference tool, since it provides an essential resource on all
technical and
operational aspects of the program, and in particular, provides
important
orientation information for new experimenters. The
document also serves as a reference for more
experienced
experimenters, for example as new technology (e.g., the new GPS timer)
becomes
available and various sub-systems, such as attitude sensors and ACS
systems,
are improved. To this end, we suggest
that examples of actual flight sub-system data, such as attitude
information
and verification, be provided in the handbook, with a discussion of the
actual
accuracies attained. To this end, the
SRWG would be willing to provide feedback and work with NSROC to
delineate
those portions of the handbook that the users believe are most urgently
in need
of updates.
VI.
Support for Studies of Proposal Submission
Trends
The
SRWG heard a presentation from a member of a “Task Force” commissioned
in
coordination with the NASA HQ Geospace Scientific Advisory Working
Group (i.e.,
the Geospace MOWG) that discussed a planned analysis of trends in the
number of
proposal submissions over the years in that discipline.
Because geospace investigations form a
significant component of the sounding rocket program, trends in
geospace
participation and interest, reflected to some degree in numbers of
proposals
submitted, have a very large impact on both short-term and long-term
strategic
and logistic planning for the entire sounding rocket program. Therefore, the SRWG maintains a keen interest
in the ongoing discussion of such trends in not only geospace, but also
all
disciplines served by the program.
Furthermore,
as the SRWG represents the greater scientific user community for the
program,
we stand ready to support the efforts of this (and any other) task
force in any
way needed, particularly should input be requested on how proposals
might be
motivated by technical and operational factors that might influence the
rate of
proposals submitted to NASA HQ. For
example, such factors might include the availability of high
performance launch
vehicles, launch ranges, foreign campaigns, new sub-systems such as
high
telemetry rate systems, the ability for Wallops to fly complex payloads
including multiple payloads, etc. The
SRWG encourages all efforts to elucidate such trends through polling
members of
the science community.
NASA
Sounding Rocket Working Group
Dr.
Robert F. Pfaff, Jr. (Chair)
NASA/Goddard
Space Flight Center
Dr.
Mark Conde
University of Alaska
Dr.
Tim Cook
Boston University
Dr.
Lynette Gelinas
Cornell University
Dr.
Jim Green
University
of Colorado
Dr.
Walt Harris
University of Wisconsin
Dr.
James LaBelle
Dartmouth College
Dr.
Gerald Lehmacher
Clemson University
Dr.
Dan McCammon
University of Wisconsin
Dr.
Doug Rabin
NASA/Goddard
Space Flight Center
Dr.
Charles Swenson
Utah State
University
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