National Weather Service (NWS) Spaceflight Meteorology Group (SMG) will support the NASA International Space Station Program by forecasting enroute weather for NASA pilots and management personnel flying from Houston to Kazakhstan to retrieve U.S. astronauts landing on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft on July 1, 2012. [Show More]

National Weather Service (NWS) Spaceflight Meteorology Group (SMG) will support the NASA CPAS [CEV (crew exploration vehicle) Parachute Assembly System] parachute drop test of the Orion spacecraft at Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona. The test "window" is from July 17 - 20, 2012. SMG will provide forecasts and briefings of upper winds and surface weather to NASA CPAS teams in Houston and Yuma. SMG has been providing this support to the CPAS program since 2010.

SMG will provide weather forecasts and decision support for NASA/JSC in Houston for the June 28 Morpheus project test firing on the grounds of JSC. Additional test firings are planned for early and mid July, 2012. SMG has provided forecasts for previous test firings during the past year, including multiple tests in March, April, and May, 2012.

Morpheus is a vertical test bed demonstrating new green propellant propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technology. Designed, developed, manufactured and operated in-house by engineers at NASA's Johnson Space Center, the Morpheus Project represents not only a vehicle to advance technologies, but also an opportunity to try out "lean development" engineering practices. Morpheus is a NASA-designed vehicle.