1. Driftsonde System Capabilities
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Earth Observing Lab
Boulder, CO
Driftsonde Engineering Group
Terry Hock, Nick Potts, Charlie Martin
Driftsonde Scientist Group
Holger Vömel, Steve Cohn, Kate Young
Strateole 2 Workshop
18-19 March 2015
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2. Driftsonde Large zero-pressure or super-pressure balloon
aloft for days to months
Iridium Satellite
Driftsonde Gondola
54 dropsondes
Float altitude
~18 to 30 km
Dropssonde :
Pressure
Temperature
Relative humidity
Wind
Ground station
(web based
remote operation)
Sondes dropped on command or a pre-programmed schedule

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Past campaigns
AMMA (2006)
T-PARC (2008)
CONCORDIASI (2010)
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Driftsonde Gondola
MIST Sonde Capacity: 54 units
Operational Life: ~ 6+ weeks
Mass: ~24kg (with sondes)
Size: 71 cm x 71 cm x 45 cm
Power: Lithium SO2 Batteries
Solar Panel Heaters for batteries and electronics
Automated Radiosonde Sounding System
Iridium Satellite Communications
System Health Engineering Monitoring
Position & Velocity - GPS Receiver
Pressure Sensor
Battery voltages
Solar Panel voltage
Component Temperatures
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5. Miniature In-situ Sounding Technology (MIST Sonde)
GPS Antenna
Back Side Components
Cone Parachute
GPS Receiver
Lithium
Battery
Microcontrollers
400 MHz Transmitter
Pressure Sensor
400 MHz Antenna
Humidity Sensors
Temperature Sensor
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6. Miniature In-situ Sounding Technology (MIST Sonde)
Size: 30.5 cm height x 4.40 cm diameter
Mass: 182 grams
Fall time: ~ 17 minutes from 60 mb
Fall Velocity: ~40 60 mb, ~10 surface
Vaisala RS-92 radiosonde sensor module
Pressure, Temperature, Humidity
Update rate 0.5 sec
Winds based upon OEM GPS receiver
0.1 m/s resolution
0.25 sec (4 Hz) update rate for wind data
Cone parachute
Transmission at MHz
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Sonde Fall Velocity
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8. System Communications and Data Flow
Driftsonde
Gondola
Internet
RF Link
400 MHz
Telephone
Lines
Iridium Ground System
Arizona U.S.
Web Interface
and Control
Toulouse
Seychelles
Boulder
Boulder Telephone
Modems (min qty 4)
Boulder Servers
Back End control &
Data Storage
NCAR
Ground
Control
Boulder, CO
Iridium Satellite
1620 MHz
RF link
Dropsonde
PTU & Winds
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Global Operations
Scientific Flight Operations Center & Flight Control
Toulouse, France
Engineering Monitoring
Boulder, USA
Balloon Launch Location
Victoria, Seychelles
Past Launch and Flight Operations Locations
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10. Dropsondes on other platforms
C-130 Aircraft
P-3 Aircraft
Driftsonde - Zero Pressure balloon
G-5 Aircraft
Driftsonde –Super Pressure Balloon
& UAS Global Hawk
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System Status
MIST Sonde:
GPS receiver and transmitter IC are obsolete=> new circuit and PCB design, update firmware
Gondola:
Iridium transceiver module and mini computer are obsolete
New hardware and software engineering required in main electronics
Driftsonde WEB Site:
Software control, monitoring and data display is all WEB based
Software engineering required to update code for security
and for current operating system versions
Option to leave off PTH sensor module for wind only sonde to reduce costs (~25% sonde cost reduced)
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12. Field Support and Travel
1 trip to CNES in Toulouse France for Integration testing and planning meetings. (2 NCAR staff)
1 trip to the Seychelles for a validation flight, (2 NCAR staff)
(There would be 1 gondola and 1 spare unit for this campaign)
2 trips to the Seychelles to support a 2 month field campaign for each year. Due to the duration in the field, this would be staffed by 2 EOL staff at any given time and there would be a change out of staff after 1 month. ( 2 staff on site at any time)
We would not provide support in France during flight operations but could do so from Boulder. If training is needed for the WEB control, then I would recommend staff travel to NCAR for training.
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NCAR Operations
During flight operations, it will be the responsibility of the PI’s to determine and perform the drops via the Drifstonde WEB site (in cooperation with NCAR engineers)
NCAR engineers in Boulder will monitor and control health of each gondola over the flight period.
NCAR will perform data quality control for all soundings (Kate Young and Holger Vömel)
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Driftsonde Summary
Proven operations in extreme environments Tropics to Antarctica high altitude (~20km to ~30km)
Long term flights ( 6+ weeks)
Precision in-situ sensors in sonde
High vertical resolution atmospheric profiles
54 sonde capacity in gondola
Support of multiple simultaneous gondolas in flight
Web based system for command, control and data display
Global control and monitoring
Fully automated operations pre scheduled sonde releases
Release sondes up to every 2 hours (limited by Iridium data bandwidth)
Significant engineering changes from AMMA to T-PARC and Concordiasi
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MIST Sonde Humidity Data First 6 drops from MSD1 Seychelles launched February 8, 2010
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MIST Sonde Wind Speed Data First 6 drops from MSD1 Seychelles launched February 8, 2010
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MIST Sonde Temperature Data First 6 drops from MSD1 Seychelles launched February 8, 2010
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Gondola Illustration
Harness
GPS & Iridium Antenna
Solar Panels for Heater
Iridium Modem
System Electronics
Battery & Elect. Heater
MIST Sondes
Lithium Batteries
400 MHz Sonde Antenna
NOT TO SCALE
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21. Gondola System Block Diagram
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22. Driftsonde WEB Interface Control and Data Display
Capabilities
Schedule Sonde releases
Set Drop Limits
Table of sonde release location and drop times
Sounding data files
Sondes Available for release
Log of ALL commands sent to gondola
Google Earth Maps- Track
Iridium communications history
WEB database of all soundings
Password protected site, with limited to full use privileges
Engineering health of gondola
System (battery) Voltages
GPS Position & Velocity
Flight Pressure
Temperature monitoring
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Driftsonde
Cost-effective dropsonde observations to fill critical gaps in coverage over oceanic and remote regions over days to months
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