A Tactical Decision Support Tool for High Speed Projectiles in Adverse Weather Conditions

High speed projectile launch decisions always tend toward"clear sky"days because no capability has existed to assess high speed flight risk due to weather in either design or operations. Since clear sky conditions occur about 50% of the time, the risk of mission failure is unknown half of the time when clouds are present. Under a Navy Phase I STTR, CFD Research Corporation and the University of Alabama Huntsville performed a feasibility study on the development of methodologies and technologies for the analysis of high speed projectile mission risk in adverse weather conditions. This work showed how a tactical launch decision is supported by the use of design data in operations to compute the probability of survival of a flight system through atmospheric condensate. During Phase II, the methodologies will be extended, implemented, and demonstrated in an end-to-end process focusing on near-term applicability with continued research in support of long-term goals to maintain focus for advancing the state of the technology. The key components of this work include connectivity to operational radar sensors, system weather tolerance model development, and software engineering for real-time operational support. Tactical scenarios will be developed to demonstrate the applications of the risk assessment measure.