The Series-30 is also more selective, better able to discriminate during valve cycling, for example, so we get just the data we want. And there's a lot of data to process. The MADS is responsible for data collection from pre-launch to post landing. Aboard the space shuttle, the MADS measures and records selected pressure, temperature, and strain gauge measurements, vibrations, and event data to support payloads and experiments and to determine orbiter environments during flight. It supplements existing orbiter operational instrumentation by conditioning, digitizing, and storing data from selected sensors and experiments.
Engineers then correlate the data from one flight to another and from one orbiter to another.
As data end users, various NASA divisions often base modifications to the shuttle on these results. Increasingly compressed timelines and launch schedules are driving this need for immediate information. It's no coincidence that the upgraded MADS should be aboard the shuttles circa 2000, when missions are expected to exceed 50 a year.