October 15, 2002

Krista Laursen
Director, HIAPER Project Office

First off, I will apologize for bypassing the monthly status report for this project in September. By way of explanation, late August and early September flew by here in the HIAPER Project Office (HPO) in a blur of activity as we worked with other UCAR and NCAR staff on the Statement of Work (SOW) for HIAPER and focused on a series of engineering discussions related to modification of the new GV. Thus, before I knew it, it was early October. So, I'll use this month's status report to catch everyone up on activities related to the HIAPER acquisition over the past two months.

As has been discussed previously, the primary focus here in the Project Office is presently on finalizing modification decisions for the GV. A critical step in the formalization process was the Systems Design Review (SDR), which was held in Greenville, South Carolina near Lockheed Martin's modification facility from 24-26 September. UCAR, NCAR, Gulfstream, Lockheed Martin, and HAC representatives participating in these discussions spent three days reviewing the most recent draft of the HIAPER SOW page by page and paragraph by paragraph in an effort to zero in on final decisions in some areas and to clearly delineate those aspects of the document and the associated tasks that still require attention prior to finalization in the SOW. A great deal of progress was made during the discussions, and on the afternoon of Thursday, 26 September, the meeting attendees had the opportunity to visit and tour Lockheed Martin's facility and to see and walk through the HIAPER "green" airframe again. Some of the digital pictures taken during this tour will shortly be posted to the HIAPER Photo Gallery section of this website in the coming days to see what's available.

Having concluded the SDR, Project Office staff are now focusing on completing and submitting the final UCAR version of the SOW. As of this writing, it is our intent to submit this document to Gulfstream for their review by 23 October. Following our submission of the document, Gulfstream will then review the materials with Lockheed Martin and will work with us here at UCAR and NCAR to arrive at the final version of the SOW. Once UCAR, NCAR, Gulfstream, and Lockheed Martin have all agreed to the contents of the SOW, this document will be made part of the subcontract for HIAPER and will be used as the vehicle against which the completed and modified GV will be tested for final acceptance by UCAR and NCAR staff. Because of this latter requirement, a great deal of time and attention has been devoted by all parties to the review and modification of the final document in order to ensure that it is as complete and accurate as possible. In fact, I think it's a pretty safe bet that several of us in the HPO, ATD, and UCAR Contracts have large sections of the SOW committed to memory by now, by virtue of the large amounts of time we've spent going over the contents.

Now, I'd like to give you a quick overview of upcoming activities and events here in the HPO.

Current Activities and Upcoming Events

In parallel with our work on the HIAPER SOW, those of us here in the Project Office are also focusing a good deal of time on the upcoming NSF-led HIAPER Instrumentation Workshop to be held here at NCAR from 4-6 November. The program for this event is quite close to being finalized and will shortly be posted to the workshop website. Seven invited speakers with expertise in various environmental research fields have agreed to participate and will give talks on the opening day of the workshop. These invited speakers are: Bob Serafin (NCAR), Azadeh Tabazadeh (NASA Ames), Guy Brasseur (Max Planck Institute for Meteorology), Thomas Ackerman (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), David Fahey (NOAA Aeronomy Lab), Susan Ustin (UC Davis), and Alan Thorpe (University of Reading).

In addition to the invited talks, the first day of the workshop will consist of the presentation of information regarding the capabilities of the GV and plans for its modification. NSF staff will also provide an overview of the NSF HIAPER instrumentation fund proposal process. The second day of the workshop will begin with an invited speaker panel discussion and will continue with a "town hall" session in which workshop participants can sign up to provide their own brief presentations to the group on topics of interest to the HIAPER project. Two group sessions focusing on major research areas instrumentation priorities and HIAPER instrumentation design and development will be held in parallel in the afternoon, and a preview of HIAPER engineering aspects and ideas will conclude the second day of the workshop. On the final morning of the workshop, reports from the focus group sessions of the preceding day will be given, and a summary of the workshop conclusions and outcomes will be presented. All in all, it promises to be a very busy two-and-a-half days for those attending the workshop.

As of this writing, over 120 individuals from UCAR, NCAR, universities, government labs, and private industry have registered for the workshop. Because of this already high registration total, and out of anticipation that this number could go even higher, the Project Office has made the decision to move all of the workshop sessions to the new Center Green campus. The plenary sessions will be held in the Center Green auditorium, and arrangements are presently being made to house the two parallel discussion groups as appropriate at Center Green. The workshop materials on the Web will shortly be updated to reflect the change in venue to Center Green, and announcements of this change will also be sent out to each of the registered participants within the next few days.

For those of you already planning on joining us for the workshop, I look forward to your participation and input during these critical community discussions.

In Conclusion

In the coming months -- both at the Fall AGU Meeting in December and the AMS meeting in February 2003 -- Project Office staff will be making presentations to the scientific community about the status of the project and modification plans for the aircraft as part of our ongoing effort to make sure that the community is kept in the loop to the greatest degree possible regarding plans for this new platform. In addition to talks and posters on HIAPER to be presented at both of the above-mentioned conferences, HIAPER information will also be provided in booths at both events. So, should you be planning on attending either one or both of the AGU and AMS meetings, please stop by the HIAPER booth or poster presentations or sit in on one of the scheduled talks in order to keep up to date with the latest information regarding this project.

As always, should you have any questions about the HIAPER program, please do not hesitate to contact me here in the HPO.