Modeling path delay in the neutral atmosphere

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on improving path delay models for analysis of Space Geodesy data including VLBI, GNSS, and DORIS by investigating the use of global numerical weather models, regional weather models, results of InSAR data analysis, and water vapor radiometers for determination of errors in path delay modeling. The research aims to understand the origin of these errors and develop methodologies for mitigation of wet-delay errors. Additionally, the research explores the applicability of big datasets for evaluation of stochastic properties of the atmosphere for given geodetic stations over a defined time interval by utilizing advances of turbulence theory. This opportunity is located at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and is closed to applicants who are Senior Fellows (5-years or more past PhD).