May 3 1979
From The Space Library
NASA announced that its satellite system ASDAR (aircraft-to-satellite data relay) had started operation as part of the GWE that began earlier this year [see January 7], collecting and relaying weather observations from aircraft in flight and leading to possible million-dollar savings annually in aviation fuel costs. The system, consisting of a power supply, clock, 80-watt transmitter, small computer, and antenna, would monitor and report eight times per hour the aircraft's location and altitude, together with weather data generated by equipment already aboard each ASDAR-equipped airliner.
The system would relay the information through a NOAA satellite to weather data centers and on to the users. Relay of quickly changing weather information to subsequent flights within two hours could save time and fuel by taking advantage of favorable winds or avoiding threatening storms. Also, the 17 widebody jets using ASDAR would regularly cross the southern hemisphere and the tropics, where data were not usually available. Participating countries included England, Australia, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, Singapore, and the United States (NASA Release 79-51)
NASA also reported that ARC'S research aircraft Galileo II had gone to Saudi Arabia to join an international study of the monsoon, a storm system bringing nearly all the Asian subcontinent's annual rainfall in June, July, and August, supplying torrents of moisture for the crops and overwhelming the area in floods. In 1978 the storms killed more than 900 people and left more than 3 million homeless. MONEX (the monsoon experiment) would trace the origin of the storms and attempt to provide weather forecasts that would be "extremely useful" in an area "practically devoid of basic weather data," according to Joachim Kuettner, director of the U.S. effort. (NASA Release 79-55)
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