jplcdsmeetings/Header

Speaker: Claire Newman, Caltech

Date: Thursday, May 22, 2008

Title: Obtaining and using wind fields from numerical models of planetary atmospheres.

Abstract: The overall goal is to facilitate autonomous balloon navigation within Titan's troposphere by modeling the expected atmospheric winds. These may be used to predict the range of expected trajectories for different start times and locations; to predict regions accessible by a balloon with little or no active steering; and to assess the need for active steering. I will provide an overview of what goes into numerical models of planetary atmospheres, with a focus on Titan. I will then present results from such a model and discuss the difficulties of using them to predict balloon paths and assess the need for active steering, particularly when little is known about the atmosphere ahead of time and model results are likely to be highly innacurate. This relates to several SURF projects, including one to predict balloon paths on *Earth* in readiness for a demonstration balloon flight. Such a flight would be useful to highlight the difficulties of autonomous navigation even when the wind field is relatively well understood.