A51S-10
A Concept for Ionospheric Tomography from a CubeSat Platform at Low Earth Orbit
Friday, 18 December 2015: 09:48
3004 (Moscone West)
Supriya Chakrabarti1, Timothy Cook2, Susanna C Finn2, Christopher Mendillo2, Jason Martel1 and George Geddes3, (1)University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Lowell, MA, United States, (2)University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, United States, (3)UMass Lowell Center for Atmospheric Research, Lowell, MA, United States
Abstract:
Remote sensing of the neutral atmosphere and ionosphere using extreme and far ultraviolet airglow has now been well established. It has been shown that the OI 135.6 nm nightglow can be used to infer the density of singly ionized atomic oxygen ions, the dominant ion in the F2 region. It has also been shown that zenith angle profiles of OII 83.4 nm emissions in the dayglow are sensitive to the electron density profiles as measured by incoherent scatter radar. Finally, simultaneous measurements of OII 61.7 nm and OII 83.4 nm emissions have been shown to yield daytime electron densities. We describe several key technological advances that have made it possible to consider self-consistent characterization of the thermosphere and ionosphere from a CubeSat platform.
