Space Shuttle Pad Exposure Period Meteorological Parameters STS–1 Through STS–107

During the 113 missions of the Space Transportation System (STS) to date, the Space Shuttle fleet has been exposed to the elements on the launch pad for ≈ 4,195 days. The Natural Environments Branch at Marshall Space Flight Center archives atmospheric environments to which the Space Shuttle vehicles are exposed. This Technical Memorandum (TM) provides a summary of the historical record of the meteorological conditions encountered by the Space Shuttle fleet during the pad exposure period. Parameters included in this TM are temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, sea level pressure, and precipitation. Extremes for each of these parameters for each mission are also summarized. Sources for the data include meteorological towers and hourly surface observations. Data are provided from the first launch of the STS in 1981 through the launch of STS–107 in 2003.