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Mark IV-B
The Mark IV-B is a meteorological satellite terminal designed to support tactical operations as part of the DMSP User Segment. The system can access two types of polar-orbiting satellites (DMSP and TIROS-N) and three types of geostationary satellites (GOES, GMS, and METEOSAT). It is capable of acquiring, ingesting, decrypting, and processing data from one polar-orbiting and one geostationary satellite simultaneously. The Mark IV-B provides mass storage backup and playback of raw satellite data and maintains a data base for storing and retrieving meteorological information. The Mark IV-B has the capability to manipulate and enhance meteorological data and satellite imagery (either displayed or data base imagery) in order to generate hard-copy transparencies or paper copies of products. The system also provides for animation of imagery at rates ranging from 0.1 to 10 frames per second. The Mark IV-B demodulates, decrypts, and processes the DMSP satellite 1.024 Mb/s Real-Time Direct (RDT) data stream containing visible and infrared imagery data Ñ one channel Fine, one channel Smooth, and mission sensor data. DMSP Fine imagery is ingested, corrected for OLS scanner motion and earth curvature, and earth-location information is added to produce images with 0.3 nautical mile resolution. DMSP RTD Fine data is averaged to create DMSP Smooth imagery of OLS visible and infrared data at a resolution of 1.5 nautical miles. The Mark IV-B also processes the SSM/I, SSM/T, SSM/T-2 data received from DMSP satellites. The SSM/T data is processed to generate meteorological products such as brightness temperature fields, temperature-pressure soundings, temperature-height soundings, gridded temperature and thickness fields, tropopause height, temperature, and pressure. The Mark IV-B is also capable of receiving and processing the DMPS Real-Time Data Smooth 66 kb/s data stream. 
The M4B is equipped with a full server/ingest capability selectively located for satellite ingest coverage. It has access to high speed Internet for HTTP data distribution. The system includes workstations on a local M4B LAN and local Intranet. Addition workstations (UNIX or NT) can be added as required. The M4B remote workstation (UNIX/NT, UNIX client at AFWA) has the same capability as a local client workstation without the antennas. The M4B remote workstation uses high speed HTTP Internet access for data retrieval. Any PC (SVGA) with a GIDS viewer can provide the basic subset of M4B client capabilities with three selectable screen resolutions to match user system capabilities. The products areas of interest are predefined rather than selection of area. The products are retrieved via modem or high speed Internet FTP access. Such a distributed capability opens the door to new concept of field support. 
The MarkIVB is fielded for specific regional missions from Tropical Cyclone Reconnaissance and Specification to military operations in Korea and Europe and to maximize global coverage. 
Above figure: Mark IV-B Worldwide Deployment. |