Mission Support for the Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast Satellite
Abstract
This is a project to provide mission support for the Communication/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) under BAA VS-O3-O1 during its first four years of operation. Cornell is required to support the mission with ground-based radar observations of background ionospheric parameters and of Equatorial Spread F (ESF) events from the Jicamarca Radio Observatory near Lima, Peru. In the pre-launch period for C/NOFS, Cornell and Jicamarca contributed to the project by measuring plasma density, drift, temperature, and composition profiles during eight campaign periods. Cornell's theoretical studies based on the radar observations of the postsunset bottornside F region have also identified a new plasma shear instability that acts as a seed for the observed large-scale density irregularities. In this report, the field-line averaged linear growth rate of the instability and its comparison with that of the generalized Rayleigh-Taylor instability are presented. The shear instability may be used as a tool for understanding and forecasting of ESF. The instability model and its forecasting capability will improve when C/NOFS measurements are available.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 30, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA466144
Entities
People
- D. L. Hysell
Organizations
- Cornell University