Meteorological Support to RDT&E Activities

Abstract

This Program Element (PE) provides meteorological support to research, development, test, and evaluation (RDTE) activities and provides standard and specialized weather forecasts and data to satisfy Army/Department of Defense (DoD) RDT&E test requirements for modern weaponry, e.g., (1) unique atmospheric analysis and sampling to include atmospheric transmittance, extinction, optical scintillation, infrared temperature, aerosol/smoke cloud dispersion characteristics, and ballistic meteorological measurements; (2) test event forecasting to include prediction of sound propagation for ballistic firing tests, specialized prediction of light levels and target to background measurements, and predictions for electro-optical testing and ballistic artillery/mortar firing; and (3) advisory and warning products such as go/ no-go test recommendations for ballistic and atmospheric probe missiles, smoke/obscurant tests, hazard predictions for chemical agent munitions disposal, monitoring dispersion of simulant clouds for chemical/biological detector tests, simulated nuclear blasts, and weather warnings for test range safety. The PE provides technical weather support to Army and Joint Program Executive Officers (PEOs), Project Managers (PMs), and the Army test ranges and sites at: White Sands Test Center (WSTC), White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico; Electronic Proving Ground (EPG), Fort Huachuca, Arizona; West Desert Test Center (WDTC), Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; Aberdeen Test Center (ATC), Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland; Redstone Test Center (RTC), Redstone Arsenal, Alabama; Yuma Test Center (YTC), Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona (including the Cold Regions Test Center (CRTC), Fort Greely, Alaska); Operational Test Command (OTC), Fort Hood, Texas and Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This PE develops methodologies and acquires instrumentation and systems that allow meteorological teams to support current and future Army/DoD RDTE requirements. It finances indirect meteorological support operating costs not billable to customers and replacement/upgrade of meteorological instrumentation and support systems. Direct costs for meteorological support services are not funded by this PE, but are borne by the customer (i.e., materiel/weapons developers and project/product managers) in accordance with DoD Directive 7000.14R, October 1999. This PE enables more effective test scheduling and execution, and is essential to the accomplishment of the Army's developmental and operational test mission in that precise weather modeling and measurements directly influence test item performance and quantify test item weather dependencies and vulnerabilities.

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Document Details

Document Type
R2 Budgetary Justification
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2018
Source ID
0605702A_6_2040_PB_2018
Change Summary Explanation
Service Agency Name
Army

Entities

Organizations

  • United States Army

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Chemical Warfare Agents
  • Cold Regions
  • Department Of Defense
  • Desert Tests
  • Detectors
  • Four Dimensional
  • High Resolution
  • Indirect Costs
  • Instrumentation
  • Measurement
  • Munitions
  • New Mexico
  • North Carolina
  • Range Safety
  • Standards
  • Test And Evaluation
  • Weapons

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Aerospace Test and Evaluation
  • Atmospheric Science/Meteorology
  • Military/Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Technology

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics

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