December 2, 2019: New Perspectives on the Ionosphere and Thermosphere from the International Space Station
- December 2, 2019
- 4:00 p.m.
- 210 Robeson Hall
- Dr. Andrew Stephan, Space Science Division, U. S. Naval Research Laboratory
- Faculty Host: Dr. Scott England
Abstract: The International Space Station (ISS) provides a uniquely persistent platform to conduct routine measurements of the space weather environment, and in particular the lower ionosphere and thermosphere between 100-400 km. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory Space Science Division has flown several experiments on the ISS in the past decade to make remote and in situ observations of composition, densities, and temperature in this dynamic upper atmospheric region. This seminar will focus on three remote sensing experiments we have flown on the ISS over the past decade: RAIDS, LITES, and GROUP-C. I will describe the scientific and technical motivation for these experiments, and discuss some of the unique advantages, disadvantages, and key requirements and challenges we have encountered in the process of developing, delivering and operating these experiments on the ISS. Not only have these experiments been part of the evolution of the ISS as a remote sensing platform, they have made advances that helped define a new generation of optical remote sensing free-flyer experiments, including both the recently-launched NASA Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) and the joint U.S.-U.K. Coordinated Ionospheric Reconstruction CubeSat Experiment (CIRCE) that we have developed and manifested for flight in 2020.
Bio: Dr. Andrew Stephan is a Research Physicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. Dr. Stephan has participated in over a dozen orbital and suborbital experiment programs, primarily focused on measuring ultraviolet airglow and aurora produced in the ionosphere and thermosphere. He is currently the Principal Investigator of the Limb-Imaging Ionospheric and Thermospheric Extreme-Ultraviolet Spectrograph (LITES), an experiment launched to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Space Test Program–Houston 5 (STP-H5) payload. He also is a Co-Investigator on the NASA Ionospheric Connections Explorer (ICON) mission where he is developing and applying advanced airglow inversion algorithms to determine the composition, density, and temperature of Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere from extreme and far ultraviolet airglow data. Previously, he served as Project Scientist for the Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric Detection System (RAIDS) experiment that operated as part of the HICO-RAIDS Experiment Payload (HREP), the first U.S. payload launched to the Japanese Experiment Module – Exposed Facility of the ISS. Dr. Stephan received BS degrees in physics and mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in 1993, and his MA degree in 1997 and PhD degree in 2001 in astronomy from Boston University.