- NASA Official: Steve Kempler
- Website Curator: Anthony Drake
- Last updated: January 14, 2008 15:24:09 GMT
The production and distribution of this data set are being funded by NASA's Mission To Planet Earth Program. The data are not copyrighted, however, we request that when you publish data or results using these data please acknowledge as follows:
"The authors would like to thank the Process Studies Program Office (Code SEP, NASA Headquarters) and the Distributed Active Archive Center (Code 610.2) at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 for the production and distribution of these data, respectively. These activities were sponsored by NASA's Mission to Planet Earth Program."
The DADS data set contains DC-8 aircraft housekeeping data for TOGA-COARE mission flights collected under the direction of Principal Investigator Rudy Pueschel of NASA Ames Research Center.
The DC-8 DADS records and transfers aircraft house keeping data to experiment computers in ASCII format at 1-second intervals. The data transmission are in one direction only to protect the main system from defective experiment equipment or shorting of output lines. Hence the data in this DADS file are the same data that were transferred to experiment computers during each flight. DADS data are normally generated and recorded from soon after takeoff until shortly after landing.
The DADS data set is 60 MB with a typical file size of 3 MB for the compressed data from one flight and a typical file size of 10 MB for the 1-second ASCII data from one flight when uncompressed.
The entire DADS data set on the DAAC FTP is contained in file f1_dat.tar, which was created on 8mm tape using "tar" from a Sun system running SunOS 4.1.2 UNIX.
All data from each flight is stored in a separate subdirectory, with the subdirectory name the same as the flight number. Flight numbers are of the form "YYMMFF" where YY is the year, MM is the mission number, and FF is the flight number. Thus, 930105 is flight 5 of mission 1 (TOGA-COARE) of 1993.
In the main directory ./ the files are
README : This file
flightfmt : Formats of 10-second flight navigation data files (text)
DADSparams.ps.Z : Description of the DADS parameters (PostScript)
DADSformat.ps.Z : Format of the 1-second ASCII data files (PostScript).
In a subdirectory ./9301XX the files are
dc8_data.asc.Z : The full DADS ASCII 9600/19.2K baud serial data set
9301XX.chk : Data analysis report for file dc8_data.asc.
md_log : The in flight Mission Director's comment log
9301XX.gif : A representative NOAA APT weather picture, captured during
or before each flight (Townsville local flights only)
dc8_data.bfl : 10-second flight data file for use by NASA Ames Airborne
Science Program track-mapping software on PCs
dc8_data.flt : 10-second flight data file for use by NASA Ames Airborne
Science Program track-mapping software on UNIX systems
map1.ps.Z : PostScript track plot of the entire flight
map2.ps.Z : Same as map1.ps, with wind barbs
map3.ps.Z, : More track plots, showing any data lines or areas of
map4.ps.Z. interest at a smaller scale and higher map resolution
The number of these files varies for each flight
plots.ps.Z : PostScript plots of various DADS parameters vs. UT
Filenames ending with a ".Z" suffix have been compressed with the UNIX compress utility. Type "uncompress filename" to restore them before use.
The DADS 1-second data files. The 1-second data contained in the dc8_data.asc files are written in an ASCII compression format that requires interpretation. Each DADS data record consists of seven 56-character blocks. Each block begins with a unique character identifier and ends with an ASCII carriage return and line feed. The contents of the first five blocks (identifiers C through G) are fixed. The contents of the last two blocks (identifiers H and I) are at the discretion of the Mission Manager and may change from mission to mission. A table describing the format of the data files is in PostScript file DADSformat.ps. Descriptions of data parameters are contained in PostScript file DADSparams.ps. Both of these files reside in file f1_dat.tar. See Table 1 for the configuration of the data blocks and Table 2 for an example of the data block format.
File coord_flt_legs. This file, compiled by Ed Zipser, contains a list of DC-8 legs that were near-simultaneous in coverage with the ER-2, turboprops, or both.
Data may be accessed on the Goddard DAAC public FTP area by the following procedures.
The DADS data files are compressed then tarred in file f1_dat.tar. 4.3 How to Read and Display Data
These programs were contributed by Greg Melvin of NCAR, who wrote them for use at his own site. They were generated on a DEC workstation running UNIX, and they compile and run without modification on the DAAC's SGI IRIX system. Together with the data, these programs are contained in the file "dads.tar.Z." 5. QUALITY ASSESSMENT
These data are unprocessed instrument readings.
TOGA-COARE user services:
NASA/TOGA COARE Science Data Workshop II Proceedings, March 15-17, 1994, p4, FIRE Project Office, NASA Langley Research Center, Mail Stop 483, Hampton, VA 23666.
Bowditch, Nathaniel. American Practical Navigator, 2 vols. Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic/Topographic Center, 1977.
Last update:Tue Jan 6 12:40:08 EST 2004
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