Gathering observations from geostationary orbit above the Western Hemisphere, GOLD measures the temperature and composition of neutral gases in Earth’s thermosphere. This part of the atmosphere co-mingles with the ionosphere, which is made up of charged particles. Both the Sun from above and terrestrial weather from below can change the types, numbers, and characteristics of the particles found here — and GOLD helps track those changes.
Activity in this region is responsible for a variety of key space weather events. GOLD scientists are particularly interested in the cause of dense, unpredictable bubbles of charged gas that appear over the equator and tropics, sometimes causing communication problems. As we discover the very nature of the Sun-Earth interaction in this region, the mission could ultimately lead to ways to improve forecasts of such space weather and mitigate its effects.
Download the GOLD beauty pass: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20275
Download other GOLD resources: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/GOLDresources
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GOLD is the first NASA mission to fly as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite. GOLD is onboard on the SES-14 satellite.
Launch date: January 25, 2018
Launch location: Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana
Launch vehicle: Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket
Mission target: Earth’s ionosphere and thermosphere
Mission duration: 2-year nominal mission at geostationary orbit; extended mission possible
Above the ozone layer, the ionosphere is a part of Earth’s atmosphere where particles have been cooked into a sea of electrically-charged electrons and ions by the Sun’s radiation. The ionosphere is co-mingled with the very highest — and quite thin — layers of Earth’s neutral upper atmosphere, making this region an area that is constantly in flux undergoing the push-and-pull between Earth’s conditions and those in space. Increasingly, these layers of near-Earth space are part of the human domain, as it’s home not only to astronauts, but to radio signals used to guide airplanes and ships, and satellites that provide our communications and GPS systems. Understanding the fundamental processes that govern our upper atmosphere and ionosphere is crucial to improve situational awareness that helps protect astronauts, spacecraft and humans on the ground.
GOLD, in geostationary orbit over the Western Hemisphere, will build up a full-disk view of the ionosphere and upper atmosphere every half hour, providing detailed large-scale measurements of related processes — a cadence which makes it the first mission to be able to monitor the true weather of the upper atmosphere. GOLD is also able to focus in on a tighter region and scan more quickly, to complement additional research plans as needed.
Reference models are used to define well-established knowledge and facilitate mapping out areas for future exploration. The models might be described as semi-empirical, in that they are generated using many measurements at a varietly of locations, and those measurements are used to constrain a theoretical model which is used to estimate measurements at locations where an actual measurement is not available.
Three models important in ionospheric physics are presented in this visualization.
Reference models are used to define well-established knowledge and facilitate mapping out areas for future exploration. The models might be described as semi-empirical, in that they are generated using many measurements at a varietly of locations, and those measurements are used to constrain a theoretical model which is used to estimate measurements at locations where an actual measurement is not available.
Three models important in ionospheric physics are presented in this visualization.
On January 25, 2018, the mission will launch as NASA's first-ever hosted payload.
Speakers for the January 24, 2018 media telecon about the mission include:
Richard Eastes, Principal Investigator, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder
Elsayed Talaat, Heliophysics Chief Scientist, NASA Headquarters, Washington
Susan Batiste, Systems Engineer, LASP/CU
Katelynn Greer, Research Scientist, LASP/CU