Advanced Modular Incoherent Scatter Radar (AMISR) Student Workshop July 26 – 30, 2010 MIT Haystack Observatory Westford, MA 1Evan Thomas

The Lecturers MIT Haystack – Anthea Coster, Asti Bhatt, Bill Rideout, Phil Erickson, and Alan Rogers SRI International – Anja Strømme and Mike Nicolls Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory – Thomas Ulich Boston University – Josh Semeter University of Calgary – Mike Greffen Evan Thomas2

The Students Boston College Boston University Clemson University Cornell University Dartmouth College University of Illinois Univeristy of Massachusetts Miami University University of New Hampshire New York University – Poly Penn State University Siena College Stanford University Virginia Tech (Go Hokies!) Evan Thomas3 From schools in the United States: And from abroad: University of Alberta Argentina Brazil University of Calgary India Peru Russia University of Saskatchewan Taiwan

Structure of the Workshop Evan Thomas4 Morning: breakfast and lectures Lunch: delicious Afternoon: lectures, tours of the facilities, group work Evening: cookout at Anthea’s house, pizza party, socializing in the hotel, working on our group presentations

Lecture Topics The Basics: Introduction to the Ionosphere Basic Radar Theory ISR Theory Using Madrigal Practically and Productively Data Analysis and Fitting An Introduction to AMISR Data Retrieval and Analysis Full Incoherent Scatter Spectrum Evan Thomas5

Lecture Topics Later in the week: Trends in the Ionosphere (Thomas Ulich) Remote Sensing of the Aurora (Josh Semeter) Haystack Upgrades (Phil Erickson) RISR-C (Mike Greffen) EISCAT (Thomas Ulich) Mesospheric Ozone (Alan Rogers) Life in Irkutsk, Russia (Alexandr Scherbakov) ISR UAF Chain (Anthea Coster) Evan Thomas6

What is Incoherent Scatter Radar? Measures power scattered from large numbers of electrons in the ionosphere How does it differ from a SuperDARN radar? Evan Thomas7 Incoherent Scatter Radar Transmit Power: Megawatts Transmit Frequency: ~ MHz Can measure ion/electron temperatures, densities, and LOS velocities Operates only during scheduled experiments SuperDARN Radar Transmit Power: Kilowatt Transmit Frequency: ~10-20 MHz Can measure LOS velocities, power, and spectral width Operates continuously with capability for individual experiments

Group Experiments and Presentations Students were divided into four groups and asked to design and request an experiment using the Poker Flat Incoherent Scatter Radar in Alaska (Jean-Paul Pierre joined one of the student groups and three Canadian professors formed their own group) Experiments were run from 23:38:43 UT on 07/27/2010 to 09:30:15 on 07/28/2010 in two-hour blocks for each group Evan Thomas8

Group Experiments and Presentations Unfortunately, the Poker Flat ISR suffered a power outage early on 07/27/2010 Craig Heinselman (of SRI International) flew to Alaska on a moment’s notice to manually re- activate the radar in time for our student experiments Evan Thomas9

Group Experiments and Presentations Experiment Requests – Poker Flat – Approximately 475 possible beam positions – Three different pulse schemes Barker Code: 1.5km resolution between ~90-150km Alternating Code: 2.5km resolution between ~90-350km Long Pulse: 37km resolution between ~ km – Tradeoff between time resolution and number of beams Evan Thomas10

Group Experiments and Presentations Evan Thomas11 Our particular group designed an experiment to detect and analyze auroral activity using the Poker Flat ISR. This was motived by the relatively high Kp and AE indices in the hours leading up to the experiment times.

Group Experiments and Presentations Evan Thomas12 On Friday morning our group gave the first presentation. It was a 30 minute talk covering such topics as IRI model comparisons, ion-acoustic waves, global convection patterns, and auroral activity. All of the other groups were jealous of the radar time slot our experiment received!

HUSIR Upgrades (Haystack Satellite Imaging Radar?) Evan Thomas13 Radome and antenna reflector currently being upgraded from X-Band (10 GHz) to 95 GHz to track nanosatellites Crane used for lift arrived on 57 tractor trailers and costs $60,000 per day

Millstone Long Range Tracking Radar Evan Thomas14 First tracked Sputnik 1 after its launch on October 4, 1957 Now used by the Air Force to track space debris in near-Earth orbit

Westford Antenna Evan Thomas15

Westford Antenna Evan Thomas16

The Millstone Hill ISR in Motion Evan Thomas17

Future Work Coordinate with Phil Erickson to schedule Millstone Hill ISR experiments with overlapping fields of view of Wallops Island (Blackstone too?) – last collaboration was August 18, 2006 Analyze existing Millstone Hill ISR data available on Madrigal in conjunction with Wallops Island measurements Evan Thomas18

Conclusions It was a very enjoyable and informative week learning about ISRs and their applications to ionospheric research The group experiments and presentations were fairly challenging, working with such a diverse group of people to analayze different sets of data in such a limited amount of time A sufficient amount of time was spent covering Madrigal and how to access data for future use (IDL, Matlab, web browser) Evan Thomas19

Conclusions Next year’s AMISR Student Workshop will be combined with the EISCAT Summer School and held at the Sondrestrom Upper Atmospheric Research Facility in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland Do they allow the same students to attend twice? Evan Thomas20

The End Evan Thomas21