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At least 325 records · Page 18

Urban Air Mobility Noise: Current Practice, Gaps, and Recommendations

AN Air Mobility (UAM) is an opportunity for aviation to improve transportation systems across the world. Representative UAM vehicle attributes include electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles that can accommodate up to 6 passengers (or equivalent cargo), are possibly autonomous, perform missions of up to 100 nautical miles at altitudes up to 3000 ft. above ground level, have flight speeds up to 200 knots, and weigh between 800 and 8000 pounds. Along with the many anticipated benefits, there will be noise issues that need to be addressed. In 2018, NASA formed an Urban Air Mobility Noise Working Group (UNWG) to assemble noise experts from industry, universities and government agencies to identify, discuss, and address UAM noise issues. This oral presentation summarizes technology gaps and goals associated with four areas of interest: Tools & Technologies, Ground & Flight Testing, Human Response & Metrics, and Regulation & Policy, and is drawn from a draft white paper [1] by the same title. Tools & Technologies include noise prediction tools and noise reduction technologies that have been developed for conventional rotorcraft and fixed-wing vehicles that may be applicable or need to be modified for UAM. Prediction tools need to be able to account for variable speed rotors and other temporal variation effects that impact community noise. A reprioritization of noise sources needs to be done since UAM vehicles include multiple rotors/propellers, often in proximity to one another and/or the airframe, with dynamic transition, and new noise sources such as electric motors or hybrid-electric propulsion. Scattering and propagation methods need to be developed that include the vehicle components and surfaces near a receiver such as buildings and vertiports. Validation databases are needed to quantify prediction uncertainties. Prediction tools used to evaluate community noise will need source models appropriate for a wide range of UAM vehicles. Existing noise reduction technologies need to be evaluated and new noise reduction technologies should be developed in anticipation of future noise requirements. Although the prediction and treatment of interior cabin noise is a secondary goal, it is recognized that new tools and methods may be needed due to the uniqueness of the vehicle design and the presence of both acoustic and structure-borne loads. Ground & Flight Testing has been a critical part of validating noise reduction technologies and verifying that an air vehicle is ready for certification. UAM vehicles introduce new challenges for test procedures such as different source noise directivity, unsteady sources due to maneuvers, and a variety of takeoff and approach trajectories. The operating environment will be more complex than current aircraft with the introduction of vertiports in populated areas with “urban canyons” making reflections an important part of noise prediction and annoyance. It is expected that new test procedures and measurement methods will be necessary. Consideration will need to be given for both piloted and autonomous operations. Human Response & Metrics may be very different for UAM noise compared to current experience with airport noise. Current metrics used to certify rotorcraft and fixed-wing aircraft may not be as useful for evaluating UAM noise. Operations at lower altitudes may influence annoyance. Psychoacoustic and community testing will be needed to quantify annoyance and assess appropriate metrics. In addition to conventional noise level metrics, considerations such as audibility and temporal variation of the sound may be required. Differences between indoor or outdoor exposure will have an impact with dependence on urban and residential flight paths. Aircraft noise is currently regulated at a national level and typically involves partnerships with the industry to establish regulations. Regulators realize that current policies and procedures may not be appropriate for some of the emerging air vehicles and new procedures may be needed to address UAM noise. Development of new policies and procedures are needed so that local communities do not hastily attempt to establish their own restrictions that will both limit growth of the market and create an inconsistent and confusing regulatory environment. To expedite this development, it is crucial early measurement data are shared through partnership arrangements to support both noise certification and noise modeling/noise assessment. At the same time, an effective engagement strategy should be developed to address local community noise issues associated with UAM vehicles and flight operations as they arise.

urban air mobility↗

Video That's Out of This World: A Snapshot of Video Distribution from Across the Solar System

While extraterrestrial scientific research advances to the Moon and Mars, so does the need for secure high-quality video links to capture data and share the experience. This paper describes the space to ground architecture needed to satisfy the cultural mantra challenging “Pictures or it didn’t happen!” as NASA travels beyond Low Earth Orbit. The Marshall Space Flight Center’s Delay Tolerant Network Marshall Enterprise (DTNME) protocol is the framework for video distribution beyond the terrestrial Internet, appropriate for communications across the solar system. Utilizing the International Space Station (ISS) as a test facility, NASA engineers and contractors will demonstrate new technologies and capabilities to transmit high-quality video imagery for NASA’s return to the Moon, Mars exploration, and next generation of explorers.

Jennifer L. Christopher↗

Video That's Out of This World: A Snapshot of Video Distribution from Across the Solar System

While extraterrestrial scientific research advances to the Moon and Mars, so does the need for secure high-quality video links to capture data and share the experience. This paper describes the space to ground architecture needed to satisfy the cultural mantra challenging “Pictures or it didn’t happen!” as NASA travels beyond Low Earth Orbit. The Marshall Space Flight Center’s Delay Tolerant Network Marshall Enterprise (DTNME) protocol is the framework for video distribution beyond the terrestrial Internet, appropriate for communications across the solar system. Utilizing the International Space Station (ISS) as a test facility, NASA engineers and contractors will demonstrate new technologies and capabilities to transmit high-quality video imagery for NASA’s return to the Moon, Mars exploration, and next generation of explorers.

Photography↗

Linear Covariance Techniques to Analyze a Multi-Vehicle, Multi-GN&C System with Applications to Rendezvous in a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit

Typically for a rendezvous and docking scenario, only a single vehicle is considered the active vehicle. As a result, the target vehicle’s GN&C system is typically not a factor in the integrated performance analysis as it assumes a passive role. However, for upcoming NASA Artemis missions the active vehicle is both the chaser and target spacecraft. In addition, both vehicles are cooperating with one another, sharing telemetry data, and relying on data extracted from the GN&C system of the other. The process also includes a team of ground support personnel in mission control are tracking and monitoring each spacecraft uplinking state estimates and targeting solutions to support mission operations and enhance the onboard flight system performance. Being able to quickly analyze the impact of both vehicles with two different GN&C systems that also interact with the ground that does its own navigation and targeting uploads is critical. This paper outlines how to perform this rapid analysis using linear covariance techniques and applies them to a rendezvous scenario initiated in low lunar orbit and completed in a Near Rectilinear Halo Orbit (NRHO) representative of the NASA Artemis III mission.

Linear Covariance Analysis↗

Video That's Out of This World: A Snapshot of Video Distribution from Across the Solar System

While extraterrestrial scientific research advances to the Moon and Mars, so does the need for secure high-quality video links to capture data and share the experience. This paper describes the space to ground architecture needed to satisfy the cultural mantra challenging “Pictures or it didn’t happen!” as NASA travels beyond Low Earth Orbit. The Marshall Space Flight Center’s Delay Tolerant Network Marshall Enterprise (DTNME) protocol is the framework for video distribution beyond the terrestrial Internet, appropriate for communications across the solar system. Utilizing the International Space Station (ISS) as a test facility, NASA engineers and contractors will demonstrate new technologies and capabilities to transmit high-quality video imagery for NASA’s return to the Moon, Mars exploration, and next generation of explorers.

Photography↗

Video That's Out of This World: A Snapshot of Video Distribution from Across the Solar System

While extraterrestrial scientific research advances to the Moon and Mars, so does the need for secure high-quality video links to capture data and share the experience. This paper describes the space to ground architecture needed to satisfy the cultural mantra challenging “Pictures or it didn’t happen!” as NASA travels beyond Low Earth Orbit. The Marshall Space Flight Center’s Delay Tolerant Network Marshall Enterprise (DTNME) protocol is the framework for video distribution beyond the terrestrial Internet, appropriate for communications across the solar system. Utilizing the International Space Station (ISS) as a test facility, NASA engineers and contractors will demonstrate new technologies and capabilities to transmit high-quality video imagery for NASA’s return to the Moon, Mars exploration, and next generation of explorers.

Photography↗

An Analytic Collaborative Framework for the Earth System Observatory

NASA's Earth System Observatory groundbreaking observations will provide critical measurements to address societal relevant problems in climate change, natural hazard mitigation, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes. Central to the ESO vision is the notion of Open-Source Science (OSS), a collaborative culture enabled by technology that promotes the open sharing of data, information, and knowledge aiming to facilitate and accelerate scientific understanding, and the agile development of applications for the benefit of society. The larger vision of an Earth System Digital Twin (ESDT) calls for integrated Earth science frameworks that mirror the Earth by a proxy digital construct that includes km-scale resolution Earth system models and data assimilation systems along with an integrated set of analytic tools to enable the next generation of science discoveries and evidence-based decision making. The goal of this project is to develop an Analytic Collaborative Framework for ESO missions, based on realistic, science-based observing system simulations and the Program of Record (PoR). Tying it all together is a cloud-based cyberinfrastructure that will enable each uniquely designed satellite in the Earth System Observatory to work in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth. In this presentation, we lay the technological groundwork for enabling such a vision. Our approach consists of the 3 main interconnected building blocks: 1. Cloud-optimized representative datasets for ESO missions and the PoR to serve as basis for developing and prototyping an Analytic Collaborative Framework. 2. An Algorithm Workbench for enabling experimentation and exploration of synergistic algorithms not only for instruments within a mission, but also including the PoR and other ESO missions. 3. A series of concrete Open-Source Science demonstrations including use cases that span science discovery and end-user applications with direct societal impact. While our ultimate goal is to include all of the main missions comprising the Earth System Observatory, in our initial 2 years we will focus on AOS and SBG, two missions for which specific synergisms have been identified in a recent workshop. In this presentation we will describe our approach and discuss some illustrative examples of our framework.

Arlindo da SIlva↗

NASA Open Science Data Repository: Maximizing Spaceflight Bioscience Data

The next era in human space exploration is rapidly approaching and will require the use of countermeasures to deep space health hazards. The development of countermeasures (or, the re-purposing of existing agents) will be highly dependent on our understanding of basic biological responses to space stressors (e.g. ionizing radiation, altered gravitational fields, altered day-night cycles, confinement, isolation, hostile-closed environments, distance-duration from Earth, exposure to celestial regolith, etc.). The fast-growing array of space biological data, which in the past was simply archived after minimal analysis, holds great potential if it can be reorganized and formatted for data re-analysis and re-use via Open Science. Organizing the data for such analysis is a challenge because of its diverse nature (molecular, cellular, tissue, imaging, whole organism and behavior). To address the challenges posed by gaining new knowledge from a vast and diverse amount of biological, health and environmental data in space, the NASA Open Science Data Repository (OSDR - osdr.nasa.gov/bio) plays a crucial role in curating and openly publishing biological data from space-related experiments. Its design incorporates successes and lessons from NASA GeneLab, encompassing not only high-throughput sequencing data but also physiological, phenotypic, and telemetry data. The OSDR makes space biological data FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable), and facilitates effective data ingestion, dissemination, and Open Science collaborations. The OSDR also has the capability to integrate human astronaut data with state-of-the-art security and accessibility procedures. We will discuss here several strategies that NASA’s Biological and Physical Science Division have put in place to maximize the return on investment for spaceflight bioscience data.

space biology↗

An Analytic Collaborative Framework for the Earth System Observatory

NASA's Earth System Observatory groundbreaking observations will provide critical measurements to address societal relevant problems in climate change, natural hazard mitigation, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes. Central to the ESO vision is the notion of Open-Source Science (OSS), a collaborative culture enabled by technology that promotes the open sharing of data, information, and knowledge aiming to facilitate and accelerate scientific understanding, and the agile development of applications for the benefit of society. The larger vision of an Earth System Digital Twin (ESDT) calls for integrated Earth science frameworks that mirror the Earth by a proxy digital construct that includes km-scale resolution Earth system models and data assimilation systems along with an integrated set of analytic tools to enable the next generation of science discoveries and evidence-based decision making. The goal of this project is to develop an Analytic Collaborative Framework for ESO missions, based on realistic, science-based observing system simulations and the Program of Record (PoR). Tying it all together is a cloud-based cyberinfrastructure that will enable each uniquely designed satellite in the Earth System Observatory to work in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth. In this presentation, we lay the technological groundwork for enabling such a vision. Our approach consists of the 3 main interconnected building blocks: 1. Cloud-optimized representative datasets for ESO missions and the PoR to serve as basis for developing and prototyping an Analytic Collaborative Framework. 2. An Algorithm Workbench for enabling experimentation and exploration of synergistic algorithms not only for instruments within a mission, but also including the PoR and other ESO missions. 3. A series of concrete Open-Source Science demonstrations including use cases that span science discovery and end-user applications with direct societal impact. While our ultimate goal is to include all of the main missions comprising the Earth System Observatory, in our initial 2 years we will focus on AOS and SBG, two missions for which specific synergisms have been identified in a recent workshop. In this presentation we will describe our approach and discuss some illustrative examples of our framework.

Arlindo da SIlva↗

An In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) Concept of Operations for Part 139 Airports

Today’s airports are complex multi-faceted ecosystems. Currently, of the 517certificatedairports, 270arerequired to use safety management systems (SMSs) to identify and mitigate known hazards and emergent risks and to voluntarily share safety data with commercial operators and tenants. Airports manage a wide variety of hazards. These traffic hubs have direct responsibilities, such as removing foreign object debris from runways and taxiways and configuring runways to help prevent against incursions and tail strikes during takeoff. To ensure safety in the future NAS, the National Academies recommended an In-time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS). An IASMS will employ services, functions, and capabilities (SFCs) to identify and mitigate hazards that are proactively and predictively managed based on data analytics of detected anomalies, precursors, and trends. SFCs would scale with airport complexity and environmental conditions using increasingly automated systems to respond proactively to hazards and, by using integrated data sources and predictive safety analytical methods, discover new, never before seen risks.

Ellis, K↗

In-Time Safety Management for Part 139 Airports

Today’s airports are complex multi-faceted ecosystems. Currently, of the 517 certificated airports, 270 are required to use safety management systems (SMSs) to identify and mitigate known hazards and emergent risks and to voluntarily share safety data with commercial operators and tenants. Airports manage a wide variety of hazards. These traffic hubs have direct responsibilities, such as removing foreign object debris from runways and taxiways and configuring runways to help prevent against incursions and tail strikes during takeoff. To ensure safety in the future NAS, the National Academies recommended an In-time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS). An IASMS will employ services, functions, and capabilities (SFCs) to identify and mitigate hazards that are proactively and predictively managed based on data analytics of detected anomalies, precursors, and trends. SFCs would scale with airport complexity and environmental conditions using increasingly automated systems to respond proactively to hazards and, by using integrated data sources and predictive safety analytical methods, discover new, never before seen risks.

IASMS↗

Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) Software for the Visualization of Large Data Sets on a Video Wall

The use of collaborative scientific visualization systems for the analysis, visualization, and sharing of "big data" available from new high resolution remote sensing satellite sensors or four‐dimensional numerical model simulations is propelling the wider adoption of ultra‐resolution tiled display walls interconnected by high speed networks. These systems require a globally connected and well‐integrated operating environment that provides persistent visualization and collaboration services. This abstract and subsequent presentation describes a new collaborative visualization system installed for NASA's Shortterm Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) program at Marshall Space Flight Center and its use for Earth science applications. The system consists of a 3 x 4 array of 1920 x 1080 pixel thin bezel video monitors mounted on a wall in a scientific collaboration lab. The monitors are physically and virtually integrated into a 14' x 7' for video display. The display of scientific data on the video wall is controlled by a single Alienware Aurora PC with a 2nd Generation Intel Core 4.1 GHz processor, 32 GB memory, and an AMD Fire Pro W600 video card with 6 mini display port connections. Six mini display‐to‐dual DVI cables are used to connect the 12 individual video monitors. The open source Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) windowing and media control framework, running on top of the Ubuntu 12 Linux operating system, allows several users to simultaneously control the display and storage of high resolution still and moving graphics in a variety of formats, on tiled display walls of any size. The Ubuntu operating system supports the open source Scalable Adaptive Graphics Environment (SAGE) software which provides a common environment, or framework, enabling its users to access, display and share a variety of data‐intensive information. This information can be digital‐cinema animations, high‐resolution images, high‐definition video‐teleconferences, presentation slides, documents, spreadsheets or laptop screens. SAGE is cross‐platform, community‐driven, open‐source visualization and collaboration middleware that utilizes shared national and international cyberinfrastructure for the advancement of scientific research and education.

Jedlovec, Gary↗

Social Networking Adapted for Distributed Scientific Collaboration

Share is a social networking site with novel, specially designed feature sets to enable simultaneous remote collaboration and sharing of large data sets among scientists. The site will include not only the standard features found on popular consumer-oriented social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, but also a number of powerful tools to extend its functionality to a science collaboration site. A Virtual Observatory is a promising technology for making data accessible from various missions and instruments through a Web browser. Sci-Share augments services provided by Virtual Observatories by enabling distributed collaboration and sharing of downloaded and/or processed data among scientists. This will, in turn, increase science returns from NASA missions. Sci-Share also enables better utilization of NASA s high-performance computing resources by providing an easy and central mechanism to access and share large files on users space or those saved on mass storage. The most common means of remote scientific collaboration today remains the trio of e-mail for electronic communication, FTP for file sharing, and personalized Web sites for dissemination of papers and research results. Each of these tools has well-known limitations. Sci-Share transforms the social networking paradigm into a scientific collaboration environment by offering powerful tools for cooperative discourse and digital content sharing. Sci-Share differentiates itself by serving as an online repository for users digital content with the following unique features: a) Sharing of any file type, any size, from anywhere; b) Creation of projects and groups for controlled sharing; c) Module for sharing files on HPC (High Performance Computing) sites; d) Universal accessibility of staged files as embedded links on other sites (e.g. Facebook) and tools (e.g. e-mail); e) Drag-and-drop transfer of large files, replacing awkward e-mail attachments (and file size limitations); f) Enterprise-level data and messaging encryption; and g) Easy-to-use intuitive workflow.

Karimabadi, Homa↗

Design Description of the X-33 Avionics Architecture

In this paper, we provide a design description of the X-33 avionics architecture. The X-33 is an autonomous Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) launch vehicle currently being developed by Lockheed Martin for NASA as a technology demonstrator for the VentureStar Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). The X-33 avionics provides autonomous control of die vehicle throughout takeoff, ascent, descent, approach, landing, rollout, and vehicle safing. During flight the avionics provides communication to the range through uplinked commands and downlinked telemetry. During pre-launch and post-safing activities, the avionics provides interfaces to ground support consoles that perform vehicle flight preparations and maintenance. The X-33 Avionics is a hybrid of centralized and distributed processing elements connected by three dual redundant Mil-Std 1553 data buses. These data buses are controlled by a central processing suite located in the avionics bay and composed of triplex redundant Vehicle Mission Computers (VMCs). The VMCs integrate mission management, guidance, navigation, flight control, subsystem control and redundancy management functions. The vehicle sensors, effectors and subsystems are interfaced directly to the centralized VMCs as remote terminals or through dual redundant Data Interface Units (DIUs). The DIUs are located forward and aft of the avionics bay and provide signal conditioning, health monitoring, low level subsystem control and data interface functions. Each VMC is connected to all three redundant 1553 data buses for monitoring and provides a complete identical data set to the processing algorithms. This enables bus faults to be detected and reconfigured through a voted bus control configuration. Data is also shared between VMCs though a cross channel data link that is implemented in hardware and controlled by AlliedSignal's Fault Tolerant Executive (FTE). The FTE synchronizes processors within the VMC and synchronizes redundant VMCs to each other. The FTE provides an output-voting plane to detect, isolate and contain faults due to internal hardware or software faults and reconfigures the VMCs to accommodate these faults. Critical data in the 1553 messages are scheduled and synchronized to specific processing frames in order to minimize data latency. In order to achieve an open architecture, military and commercial off-the-shelf equipment is incorporated using common processors, standard VME backplanes and chassis, the VxWorks operating system, and MartixX for automatic code generation. The use of off-the-shelf tools and equipment helps reduce development time and enables software reuse. The open architecture allows for technology insertion, while the distributed modular elements allow for expansion to increased redundancy levels to meet the higher reliability goals of future RLVs.

Reichenfeld, Curtis J.↗

A rocket-borne pulse-height analyzer for energetic particle measurements

The pulse-height analyzer basically resembles a time-sharing multiplexing data-acquisition system which acquires analog data (from energetic particle spectrometers) and converts them into digital code. The PHA simultaneously acquires pulse-height information from the analog signals of the four input channels and sequentially multiplexes the digitized data to a microprocessor. The PHA together with the microprocessor form an on-board real-time data-manipulation system. The system processes data obtained during the rocket flight and reduces the amount of data to be sent back to the ground station. Consequently the data-reduction process for the rocket experiments is speeded up. By using a time-sharing technique, the throughput rate of the microprocessor is increased. Moreover, data from several particle spectrometers are manipulated to share one information channel; consequently, the TM capacity is increased.

Leung, W.↗

High Performance Programming Using Explicit Shared Memory Model on Cray T3D1

The Cray T3D system is the first-phase system in Cray Research, Inc.'s (CRI) three-phase massively parallel processing (MPP) program. This system features a heterogeneous architecture that closely couples DEC's Alpha microprocessors and CRI's parallel-vector technology, i.e., the Cray Y-MP and Cray C90. An overview of the Cray T3D hardware and available programming models is presented. Under Cray Research adaptive Fortran (CRAFT) model four programming methods (data parallel, work sharing, message-passing using PVM, and explicit shared memory model) are available to the users. However, at this time data parallel and work sharing programming models are not available to the user community. The differences between standard PVM and CRI's PVM are highlighted with performance measurements such as latencies and communication bandwidths. We have found that the performance of neither standard PVM nor CRI s PVM exploits the hardware capabilities of the T3D. The reasons for the bad performance of PVM as a native message-passing library are presented. This is illustrated by the performance of NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) programmed in explicit shared memory model on Cray T3D. In general, the performance of standard PVM is about 4 to 5 times less than obtained by using explicit shared memory model. This degradation in performance is also seen on CM-5 where the performance of applications using native message-passing library CMMD on CM-5 is also about 4 to 5 times less than using data parallel methods. The issues involved (such as barriers, synchronization, invalidating data cache, aligning data cache etc.) while programming in explicit shared memory model are discussed. Comparative performance of NPB using explicit shared memory programming model on the Cray T3D and other highly parallel systems such as the TMC CM-5, Intel Paragon, Cray C90, IBM-SP1, etc. is presented.

Simon, Horst D.↗

A Support Database System for Integrated System Health Management (ISHM)

The development, deployment, operation and maintenance of Integrated Systems Health Management (ISHM) applications require the storage and processing of tremendous amounts of low-level data. This data must be shared in a secure and cost-effective manner between developers, and processed within several heterogeneous architectures. Modern database technology allows this data to be organized efficiently, while ensuring the integrity and security of the data. The extensibility and interoperability of the current database technologies also allows for the creation of an associated support database system. A support database system provides additional capabilities by building applications on top of the database structure. These applications can then be used to support the various technologies in an ISHM architecture. This presentation and paper propose a detailed structure and application description for a support database system, called the Health Assessment Database System (HADS). The HADS provides a shared context for organizing and distributing data as well as a definition of the applications that provide the required data-driven support to ISHM. This approach provides another powerful tool for ISHM developers, while also enabling novel functionality. This functionality includes: automated firmware updating and deployment, algorithm development assistance and electronic datasheet generation. The architecture for the HADS has been developed as part of the ISHM toolset at Stennis Space Center for rocket engine testing. A detailed implementation has begun for the Methane Thruster Testbed Project (MTTP) in order to assist in developing health assessment and anomaly detection algorithms for ISHM. The structure of this implementation is shown in Figure 1. The database structure consists of three primary components: the system hierarchy model, the historical data archive and the firmware codebase. The system hierarchy model replicates the physical relationships between system elements to provide the logical context for the database. The historical data archive provides a common repository for sensor data that can be shared between developers and applications. The firmware codebase is used by the developer to organize the intelligent element firmware into atomic units which can be assembled into complete firmware for specific elements.

FROM↗

Insights into Long-Term Global Precipitation from IMERG and GPCP

Multiple satellite-based datasets provide estimates of the long-term record of global precipitation. Each necessarily includes both the real atmospheric behavior and a collection of artifacts driven by the input data sources and design choices in the retrievals and dataset construction. For this presentation, the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) products from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission’s U.S. Science Team are designed as a modern High-Resolution Precipitation Product (HRPP), while the Global Precipitation Climatology Project’s (GPCP) products are designed as a modern Climate Data Record (CDR). Although they share some common input data sources, the computational process for each is rather different. Comparing the precipitation estimates from each algorithm gives us insights into likely artifacts and the natural variations that are common to both. The goal of an HRPP is to give the best estimate of precipitation at each time step in the dataset, generally meaning that “all possible available” data are used. In contrast, the CDR is intended to provide a precipitation record that has relatively homogeneous statistics, necessary for climate analysis. Each analysis strives for both goals, of course, but this means that the HRPP uses the disparate collection of satellites whose statistics don’t quite match the ideal record, while the CDR is computed from fewer satellites that provide a relatively homogeneous set of precipitation statistics. This presentation employs the current versions of the IMERG and GPCP products, V07B and V3.2, respectively. A variety of analyses have demonstrated that IMERG has more artifacts, as expected, which tend to result from changes in the source of intercalibration for the various input satellites, namely the Combined Radar-Radiometer Algorithm using TMI and PR during the TRMM era and using GMI and DPR-Ku during the GPM era. As well, a shift occurs when the altitudes of the TRMM and GPM satellites change as a result of orbit boosts. For the most part the mean precipitation shows good continuity across these boundaries, but there are noticeable changes in the respective histograms. The latter has taken on more importance in recent years due to increased scrutiny on extremes which implicitly focus on the upper end of the precipitation histograms. The GPCP product is more homogeneous, with only one major change in calibrator, transitioning from the SSMI series of satellites to the SSMIS series of satellites in 2009. The GPCP analysis does a good job of minimizing artifacts in the means at this boundary, while the histograms show a smaller, but still noticeable shift in the histograms, a result that is similar to data boundaries in IMERG. The GPCP Daily, which is a month-by-month rescaling of the daily accumulated IMERG Final product, shows more consistency than the equivalent daily IMERG, but inherits the histogram shifts from IMERG. Given this overlay of artifacts, there is enough consistency between the products to illustrate some important long-term variations, including interannual variations, not all of which are easily attributable to ENSO events, and trends that are large regionally, but comparatively small when averaged across the globe.

precipitation↗