Determine the rocket launch questions to ask
Data science is an iterative process between:
- The knowledge and understanding of what is today
- Data that has been collected
- Questions that are being asked
New questions yield more information and the desire to gather more data.
When a new mission is being planned, NASA scientists have to ask: "What day in X number of years will be least likely to require a launch push due to weather?" In the days leading up to the rocket launch, NASA scientists are the most critical in asking: "Will the weather in this area at this time cause any potential issues for the launch?"
To answer these questions, NASA has rocket, weather, and flight experts who create guidelines and models that help them make a determination. They also have data from their own sensors and weather balloons, as well as trusted sources such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In this module, we don't have all of the data or expertise that NASA has on the day of a launch, but we do have simple weather data that's publicly available. This module will look at:
- Conditions (cloudy, partly cloudy, fair, rain, thunder, heavy storm)
- Temperature
- Humidity
- Wind speed
- Wind direction
- Precipitation
- Visibility
- Sea level
- Pressure
Throughout this learning path, you'll use artificial intelligence and machine learning to discover weather patterns on days when rockets successfully launched. By using those patterns, you'll predict whether a launch is likely to happen based on specific weather conditions.
Additional challenge
This module walks you through a specific way of solving this problem. You're encouraged to pause for a moment here to make predictions, and to think about other data or questions you might ask about the safety of rocket launches.
For example, do you think temperature is a more important indicator of launch safety than precipitation? Can you use Azure AI services to take real-time satellite images and use image classification to determine the types of clouds and how they relate to the likelihood of a safe launch?
What ideas do you have?