This page (a) presents preliminary results
from the ULDB Trajectory
Simulation (TrajSim) tool development activity and
(b) demonstrates the capabilities of the TrajSim software
under development by Global Aerospace Corporation.
The example trajectories shown here exhibit direction
reversals at certain times of the year and short-term
winter trajectory disruptions. Neither phenomena is
unexpected. Details may be found in our Explanation
of Results.
Preliminary versions of essential elements of the ULDB
Trajectory Simulation Mission Operations WorkStation
(MOWS) have been developed, including
- a preliminary constant-altitude, particle trace
module which calculates simulated balloon location
information as a function of time,
- a preliminary simple integrator module which evolves
the state of the simulated balloon,
- a preliminary visual display module which produces
the frames for trajectory movies,
- a preliminary environmental data module which,
currently, reads digital, global, gridded environment
data from the CPC/ACDB data set and, later, will read
environment forecast data from at least two sources,
and
- the infrastructure to allow easy development of
enhanced MOWS visual displays, balloon models, and
integrators.
We are currently generating large numbers of trajectories
to evaluate ULDB trajectory success for different launch
site and launch date options.
Future work includes evaluating the uncertainty of
trajectory predictions using state-of-the-art stratospheric
environment forecasts from the NASA/GSFC/Data Assimilation
Office (DAO) and the
United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO).
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