Satellite Data Derived Estimates of Erosion Parameters for Reentry Vehicles
Abstract
This study investigates the derivation of reentry-vehicle erosion parameter estimates based on the inference of rain rate and hydrometeor liquid water content from microwave imagery data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) sensors. Specifically, This research focuses on evaluation of Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) brightness temperature data to obtain a climatology of intense atmospheric precipitation at selected relevant land based sites for a four month summer period. An integral element of the study is identification of convective cloud models to support the analysis of hydrometeor liquid water content from the inferred surface rainfall rates. Tasks include: (1) development of SSM/I rain rate climatology; (2) development of hydrometeor liquid water content parameterization; (3) application of liquid water parameterization; and (4) documentation. Software was implemented to: (a) read the SSM/I TDRs from the acquired SSM/I data tapes; (b) calibrate and antenna pattern correct the data to obtain brightness temperatures; (c) bin the data according to the location of each desired site by latitude and longitude; (d) apply the rain rate retrieval algorithm to the data; and (e) evaluate relevant climatologies. The latter included four month summer time series of average rainfall rate, spatial standard deviation, and hydrometeor integrated liquid water content for eleven Eurasian sites.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 05, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA234792
Entities
People
- H. C. Huang
- J. S. Belfiore
- R. G. Isaacs
Organizations
- Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc