Next-Generation Marine Atmosphere Observing Instrumentation

The overall objective of this Phase I program is to develop the architecture for a satellite data uplink system for transmitting dropsonde measurement data from the sensor to a ground-based terminal without the use of a specialized receiver or direct line-of-sight radio links from the sonde to the host aircraft. This project is intended to complement the high-altitude, automatically ejected dropsonde system, XDR-928ds variant, being developed by Yankee Environmental Systems (YES) by providing a reliable non-direct radio data link between the YES sonde and the ground based users. The resulting satellite uplink device, SatSonde, will replace the standard point-to-point link used on the current XDR-928ds dropsondes (radio transmitter in sonde and corresponding AirHub receiver in the launching aircraft) with a satellite uplink system that will push the data from the sonde through an existing orbiting satellite data network and to the end-user through a web-based data dissemination service.