Space weather can disrupt technologies people rely on every day, like GPS navigation, satellite communications and spacecraft operations.
Clemson University associate professor Xian Lu is a co-investigator on NASA’s DAPHNE (Dynamic Atmosphere-Ionosphere Explorer) mission that will study how changes in Earth’s lower atmosphere influence our planet’s upper atmosphere, where space weather is manifested.
NASA has chosen the mission to enter Phase B of development, which includes planning and design for flight and mission operations.
“Space weather is often influenced not only by the sun, but also by disturbances that originate in Earth’s lower atmosphere and travel upward,” Lu said. “DAPHNE will help us better understand how these atmospheric processes interact with energy from space to shape the near-Earth environment.”
Led by Aimee Merkel from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, DAPHNE will use two identical satellites that will provide coordinated, multi-point measurements of neutral winds, temperature and composition in the ionosphere and thermosphere. The ionosphere and thermosphere are the regions where Earth’s neutral atmosphere transitions into the ionized plasma of space.
Clemson’s role in the mission comes through Lu’s work of combining observations and numerical models to study how atmospheric waves from the lower atmosphere interact with energy coming from space to shape Earth’s upper atmosphere and ionosphere. For DAPHNE, modeling will help scientists interpret satellite data, test whether the models accurately represent the physical system and improve the ability to predict space weather.
NASA said DAPHNE will undergo a confirmation review in 2027 to assess mission progress and funding availability. If confirmed, the mission launch date will be no earlier than 2029.
The DAPHNE mission was proposed as a concept study in response to NASA’s DYNAMIC (Dynamical Neutral Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling) mission announcement of opportunity.
