2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program
2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program
2008 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program
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<strong>Science</strong> &<br />
Requirements<br />
The <strong>Science</strong> Requirements &<br />
Management program element<br />
provides the information and<br />
analyses to ensure that the<br />
composition of the aircraft<br />
catalog, aircraft schedules, and investments<br />
in new technologies are directly and clearly<br />
traceable to current and planned science<br />
mission requirements. In addition, the Earth<br />
<strong>Science</strong> Project Office (ESPO) provides<br />
support to the <strong>Science</strong> Mission Directorate in<br />
requirements analysis, flight request tracking<br />
and management, and mission concept and<br />
science instrument integration development<br />
and support. They also manage most of the<br />
major Earth <strong>Science</strong> airborne field campaigns<br />
in SMD.<br />
Requirements are collected and validated in<br />
partnership with the three key stakeholder<br />
groups within the earth science community:<br />
(1) Mission scientists and managers of space<br />
flight missions in need of data for satellite<br />
calibration and algorithm validation.<br />
(2) Engineers and developers of new<br />
instruments in need of test flight or<br />
operations.<br />
(3) Scientists in need of airborne<br />
observations for answering science<br />
questions.<br />
Near term requirements are gathered<br />
primarily through the online flight request<br />
system as well as inputs from mission science<br />
teams, conferences and scientific literature.<br />
The need for airborne observations related<br />
to priority SMD missions is tracked using a<br />
5-year plan, updated annually, and by frequent<br />
communications with the <strong>NASA</strong> Earth<br />
<strong>Science</strong> <strong>Program</strong> Managers.<br />
For longer-term requirements, the program<br />
engages in a systematic process of collecting<br />
requirements from conferences, workshops,<br />
publications and interviews. Requirements<br />
gathered include platform altitude,<br />
endurance, range, and payload capacity, as<br />
well as telemetry, navigation data recorders,<br />
multidisciplinary sensors, and science-support<br />
systems.<br />
In 2007, the National Research Council<br />
published its Decadal Survey entitled,<br />
“Earth <strong>Science</strong> and Applications from Space:<br />
National Imperatives for the Next Decade<br />
and Beyond,” in which fifteen new satellite<br />
missions were recommended for <strong>NASA</strong> to<br />
pursue. As the <strong>Science</strong> Mission Directorate<br />
has worked during <strong>2008</strong> to address this<br />
mission set, establishing science teams and<br />
beginning to plan and design the missions,<br />
the <strong>Airborne</strong> <strong>Science</strong> program has worked<br />
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