Daedalus: a low-flying spacecraft for in situ exploration of the lower thermosphere–ionosphere

Sarris, Theodoros; Talaat, E. R.; Palmroth, Minna; Dandouras, I.; Armandillo, E.; Kervalishvili, Guram; Buchert, Stephan; Tourgaidis, Stylianos; Malaspina, D.; Jaynes, A. N.; Paschalidis, Vasileios; Sample, J. G.; Halekas, J. S.; Doornbos, Eelco; Lappas, Vaios; Moretto, T.; Stolle, Claudia; Clilverd, Mark A.; Wu, Qian; Sandberg, Ingmar; Pirnaris, Panagiotis; Aikio, Anita

doi:10.5194/gi-9-153-2020

Cited by 38 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 133 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…GOLD is measuring O2 density profiles from ~130 km to 250 km (Eastes et al, 2017). Daedalus (Sarris et al, 2020) is a proposed European Space Agency mission to make in-situ height-resolved measurements in the 100-200 km region from an eccentric low-perigee orbit; if selected, this mission could make a strong contribution to middle thermospheric physics and specification in the 2028-2030 timeframe.…”

Section: Middle Thermosphere Temperature and Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

NRLMSIS 2.0: A Whole‐Atmosphere Empirical Model of Temperature and Neutral Species Densities

Emmert

Drob

Bernath

et al. 2021

Earth and Space Science

Self Cite

232

166

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

NRLMSIS  2.0 is an empirical atmospheric model that extends from the ground to the exobase and describes the average observed behavior of temperature, 8 species densities, and mass density via a parametric analytic formulation. The model inputs are location, day of year, time of day, solar activity, and geomagnetic activity. NRLMSIS 2.0 is a major, reformulated upgrade of the previous version, NRLMSISE-00. The model now couples thermospheric species densities to the entire column, via an effective mass profile that transitions each species from the fully mixed region below ~70 km altitude to the diffusively separated region above ~200 km. Other changes include the extension of atomic oxygen down to 50 km and the use of geopotential height as the internal vertical coordinate. We assimilated extensive new lower and middle atmosphere temperature, O, and H data, along with global average thermospheric mass density derived from satellite orbits, and we validated the model against independent samples of these data. In the mesosphere and below, residual biases and standard deviations are considerably lower than NRLMSISE-00. The new model is warmer in the upper troposphere and cooler in the stratosphere and mesosphere. In the thermosphere, N2 and O densities are lower in NRLMSIS 2.0; otherwise, the NRLMSISE-00 thermosphere is largely retained. Future advances in thermospheric specification will likely require new in situ mass spectrometer measurements, new techniques for species density measurement between 100 and 200 km, and the reconciliation of systematic biases among thermospheric temperature and composition datasets, including biases attributable to long-term changes.

show abstract

Section: Middle Thermosphere Temperature and Compositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

NRLMSIS 2.0: A Whole‐Atmosphere Empirical Model of Temperature and Neutral Species Densities

Emmert

Drob

Bernath

et al. 2021

Earth and Space Science

Self Cite

232

166

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…4. Future satellite missions that cover ionospheric E-region, such as Daedalus (Sarris et al, 2020), are highly necessary.…”

Section: What Is the Main Driver Of The New Crochet?mentioning

confidence: 99%

High-latitude crochet: solar-flare-induced magnetic disturbance independent from low-latitude crochet

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. A solar-flare-induced, high-latitude (peak at 70–75∘ geographic latitude – GGlat) ionospheric current system was studied. Right after the X9.3 flare on 6 September 2017, magnetic stations at 68–77∘ GGlat near local noon detected northward geomagnetic deviations (ΔB) for more than 3 h, with peak amplitudes of >200 nT without any accompanying substorm activities. From its location, this solar flare effect, or crochet, is different from previously studied ones, namely, the subsolar crochet (seen at lower latitudes), auroral crochet (pre-requires auroral electrojet in sunlight), or cusp crochet (seen only in the cusp). The new crochet is much more intense and longer in duration than the subsolar crochet. The long duration matches with the period of high solar X-ray flux (more than M3-class flare level). Unlike the cusp crochet, the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) BY is not the driver, with the BY values of only 0–1 nT out of a 3 nT total field. The equivalent ionospheric current flows eastward in a limited latitude range but extended at least 8 h in local time (LT), forming a zonal current region equatorward of the polar cap on the geomagnetic closed region. EISCAT radar measurements, which were conducted over the same region as the most intense ΔB, show enhancements of electron density (and hence of ion-neutral density ratio) at these altitudes (∼100 km) at which strong background ion convection (>100 m s−1) pre-existed in the direction of tidal-driven diurnal solar quiet (Sq0) flow. Therefore, this new zonal current can be related to this Sq0-like convection and the electron density enhancement, for example, by descending the E-region height. However, we have not found why the new crochet is found in a limited latitudinal range, and therefore, the mechanism is still unclear compared to the subsolar crochet that is maintained by a transient redistribution of the electron density. The signature is sometimes seen in the auroral electrojet (AE = AU − AL) index. A quick survey for X-class flares during solar cycle 23 and 24 shows clear increases in AU for about half the > X2 flares during non-substorm time, despite the unfavourable latitudinal coverage of the AE stations for detecting this new crochet. Although some of these AU increases could be the auroral crochet signature, the high-latitude crochet can be a rather common feature for X flares. We found a new type of the solar flare effect on the dayside ionospheric current at high latitudes but equatorward of the cusp during quiet periods. The effect is also seen in the AU index for nearly half of the > X2-class solar flares. A case study suggests that the new crochet is related to the Sq0 (tidal-driven part) current.

show abstract

“…The precipitation of particles from near-Earth space into the upper atmosphere is one of the sources of disruption of telecommunication and navigation signals (Smith et al, 2008;Jin et al, 2017), and carries field-aligned currents which find their closure in the ionosphere and may lead to Joule heating in the lower thermosphere (e.g., Sarris et al, 2020) and to the formation of geomagnetically induced currents in the ground, threatening power grids (e.g., de Villiers et al, 2017). Particle precipitation can also durably affect the chemical composition of the upper atmosphere, leading for instance to ozone destruction and HO x and NO x species formation in the stratosphere and mesosphere (e.g., Andersson et al, 2014;Seppälä et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid-Vlasov simulation of auroral proton precipitation in the cusps: Comparison of northward and southward interplanetary magnetic field driving

Grandin

Turc

Battarbee

et al. 2020

J. Space Weather Space Clim.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Particle precipitation is a central aspect of space weather, as it strongly couples the magnetosphere and the ionosphere and can be responsible for radio signal disruption at high latitudes. We present the first hybrid-Vlasov simulations of proton precipitation in the polar cusps. We use two runs from the Vlasiator model to compare cusp proton precipitation fluxes during southward and northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) driving. The simulations reproduce well-known features of cusp precipitation, such as a reverse dispersion of precipitating proton energies, with proton energies increasing with increasing geomagnetic latitude under northward IMF driving, and a nonreversed dispersion under southward IMF driving. The cusp is also found more polewards in the northward IMF simulation than in the southward IMF simulation. In addition, we find that the bursty precipitation during southward IMF driving is associated with the transit of flux transfer events in the vicinity of the cusp. In the northward IMF simulation, dual lobe reconnection takes place. As a consequence, in addition to the high-latitude precipitation spot associated with the lobe reconnection from the same hemisphere, we observe lower-latitude precipitating protons which originate from the opposite hemisphere's lobe reconnection site. The proton velocity distribution functions along the newly closed dayside magnetic field lines exhibit multiple proton beams travelling parallel and antiparallel to the magnetic field direction, which is consistent with previously reported observations with the Cluster spacecraft. In both runs, clear electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves are generated in the cusps and might further increase the calculated precipitating fluxes by scattering protons to the loss cone in the low-altitude cusp. Global kinetic simulations can improve the understanding of space weather by providing a detailed physical description of the entire near-Earth space and its internal couplings.

show abstract

Daedalus: a low-flying spacecraft for in situ exploration of the lower thermosphere–ionosphere

Cited by 38 publications

References 133 publications

NRLMSIS 2.0: A Whole‐Atmosphere Empirical Model of Temperature and Neutral Species Densities

NRLMSIS 2.0: A Whole‐Atmosphere Empirical Model of Temperature and Neutral Species Densities

High-latitude crochet: solar-flare-induced magnetic disturbance independent from low-latitude crochet

Hybrid-Vlasov simulation of auroral proton precipitation in the cusps: Comparison of northward and southward interplanetary magnetic field driving

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About