We just completed todays weather briefing. The forecast for a HASP launch tomorrow (9/15) morning (07:00 MDT) calls for surface winds of S-SE at 4-6 knots, low level winds S-SE at 11-13 knots and scattered to broken cloud cover. While the surface winds look fine the low level winds look marginal. However, the extended forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday does not look much better. Thus, we will be going for this launch attempt. We will show at the base at 03:00 MDT (09:00 UTC), pickup will be at 03:30 MDT and launch will be target for 07:00 MDT (13:00 UTC).
One very interesting part of the weather forecast was the high altitude (7 mbar to 5 mbar) winds. These have been disturbed by the passage of Ike and are somewhat in disarray. However, this may work to our advantage. In particular, the winds at Ft. Sumner will first take HASP north where it will then encounter winds that will take it west, then south and finally east. In fact, the predicted trajectory (see figure) takes us around in a circle for about 20 hours wil a impact about 62 nm SE of Clines Corners, New Mexico. We will see!
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