Barbre, B. J.

Brenton, James

Decker, Ryan

Orcutt, John

NASA Technical Reports Server

An Introduction to the Profile 
Envision and Splice Tool; PrESTo
James Brenton, BJ Barbré, John Orcutt
Jacobs ESSSA / MSFC / Natural Environments 
Ryan Decker
NASA / MSFC / Natural Environments
james.c.brenton@nasa.gov
256-544-9142
NE DOLWG
8 April 2015
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20150009424 2019-08-31T10:28:57+00:00Z
Outline
• Background 
• Requirements 
• Software Design
• Splicing Procedure
• Forward Work
2
Background
• NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) requires vertically complete 
atmospheric measurements in vehicle design analyses and Day-of-
Launch (DOL) operations support.
– Designing the vehicle using wind energy spectral content not dependent on 
instrumentation source.
– Allows for multiple data sources to be used in DOL assessments. 
• The United States Air Force Eastern Range (ER) at Cape Canaveral Air 
Force Station provides atmospheric data through network of weather 
balloons and Doppler Radar Wind Profiler (DRWP) instruments.
– Automated Meteorological Profiling Systems (AMPS)
• Low Resolution Flight Element
• High Resolution Flight Element
– Jimsphere
– 50 MHz DRWP – NASA owned 
– 915 MHz DRWP
• Each data source provides coverage (vertical or temporal) that the 
other sources do not.
• MSFC Natural Environments branch is developing software (Profile 
Envision and Splice Tool (PrESTo) ) to produce vertically complete 
profiles from available sources.
3
Background
• Instrumentation Available:
6000
6500
7000
7500
8000
8500
9000
9500
10000
LRFE LRFE LRFE LRFE
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e
 
(
f
t
)
Vertical Sampling Intervals
HRFELRFE 50 MHz 915 MHz
4
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
90000
100000
110000
LRFE HRFE 50 MHz
DRWP
915 MHz
DRWP
A
l
t
i
t
u
d
e
 
(
F
e
e
t
)
Instrument Vertical Coverage
Software Requirements
• These were based on self-imposed and stakeholder 
requirements:
– Program shall be capable of generating spliced wind and 
atmospheric data from surface up to 183 km.
• Winds and thermodynamic (altitude, u, v wind components, temperature, density, 
pressure) data.  
• Altitude increment is 50 m from 0 to 20 km and 500 m from 20 km to 183 km.
– Utilize multiple sources to generate a spliced atmospheric profile.
• Below 60 kft (18 km): 915-MHz DRWP, 50-MHz DRWP, LRFE, HRFE, 
Jimsphere.
• Between 60 kft (18 km) and 100 kft (30 km): LRFE.
• Above 100 kft (30 km): Earth Global Reference Atmospheric Model (GRAM).
– Allow user to select multiple measurement sources.
– Have the capability to apply wind filtering. 
– Apply quality control algorithms to check input data. 
– Provides a text file summarizing quality control results.
– Provides a text file containing the spliced profile for use in DOL 
vehicle assessments. 
– Use open source programming language.
5
• After visual inspection, 
the user selects the data 
to splice together.
• A default filter is set to 
the smallest wavelength 
resolvable by all systems.
• A vertically complete 
profile is made, and 
added to the list of data 
to visualize.
Software Design
6
Start PrESTo
• The user can now view the 
spliced profile with the original 
data, and decide if they want to 
adjust the filter wavelength or 
write the profile to a text file.
• User selects a range of date and 
times.
• PrESTo returns all available data, 
and the user selects which 
datasets to visualize. 
• PrESTo plots the user selected 
datasets.
Visualization
Splicing
Final 
Spliced 
Profile
Decision
Splicing Procedure
• Interpolate all the data to a constant altitude interval and range.
• If an overlap of data exists between two input sources, a weighted 
average is taken between the two profiles within the altitudes of 
concurrent data. 
• If no overlap exists, values are interpolated from the lower dataset to 
the higher dataset.
• Based on the input, a common low-pass filter to remove wind 
component spectral content below a constant wavelength.
– Set to the wavelength resolvable by the coarsest measurement systems.
– Users have the capability to increase the filter applied to the spliced profile in 
order to remove non-persistent wind features; which can be utilized in vehicle 
assessments.
7
Splicing Procedure
Time correlated LRFE (1815 LST), 50- (1700 LST) and 915 MHz (1810 LST) DRWP 
profiles at the ER from 14 Jan. 2005 on left and the resulting spliced profiles (common 
low-pass filter in red, user defined filter in blue).
Splice 
&
Filter50-MHz
LR
915-MHz
Common Filtered
User Filtered (4 km)
8
Forward Work
• Continue source code development. 
• Generate documentation per NASA software engineering 
requirements for space flight mission support software:
– Requirements Specification
– Configuration Management
– Software Design
– Test plan
• Integrate, evaluate and test software to achieve a 
baseline release version.
• Anticipated release in Spring 2016.
9
Questions?
Other contributors:
John R. Walker (Cherokee Nation Technologies, Tulsa, OK)
Richard D. Leach (MITS, Huntsville, AL)
10
Backup
Instrument Vertical Range Sampling of MIDDS output Description
Low Resolution Flight 
Element (LRFE)
Near Surface ‐ 100,000 ft
(30 km)
1,000 ft (300 m)
500 ft (150 m)
100 ft (30 m)
Released once daily and for 
mission support.
Sonde on a latex balloon, tracked by 
GPS.
High Resolution Flight 
Element (HRFE)
Near Surface ‐ 60,000 ft
(18.3 km)
100 ft (30 m)
Released for mission support.
Sonde on a Jimsphere, tracked by 
GPS.
Radar tracked 
Jimsphere
Near Surface ‐ 60,000 ft
(18.3 km)
100 ft (30 m)
Released for mission support.
Sonde on a Jimsphere, tracked by 
multiple radars.
50 MHz DRWP 6,000 ‐ 60,000 ft (2 ‐ 18.3 km)
500 ft (150 m), Profiles recorded 
at approximately every 5 
minutes
Remote sensing using an antenna 
array with aperture of 15,600 m2. 
915 MHz DRWP 600 ‐ 10,000 ft
328 ft (100 m), Profiles recorded 
at approximately every 15 
minutes
Remote sensing using an antenna 
array with aperture of 6 m2. 
11


An Introduction to the Profile Envision and Splice Tool; PrESTo

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