The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will continue a program of upper atmosphere research using the radar and distributed ground-based instruments that comprise the Millstone Hill Observatory (MHO) in Westford, Massachusetts. The Millstone Hill incoherent scatter radar facility consists of two 2.5-MW UHF transmitters, a fully steerable 46-meter antenna, and a zenith directed 68-meter fixed antenna. The Observatory is situated at 55° latitude, such that its extensive field of view for ionospheric observations encompasses the full extent of mid-latitude, sub-auroral, and auroral features and processes. The radar will be operated for about 1000 hours per year in support of international World Day experiments and community-directed research programs. Radar and system maintenance and minor upgrades will be carried out, along with wide-ranging scientific analysis of the data to support scientific usage. User support will receive major emphasis including efficient access to the observed and analyzed parameters, information, scheduling, and database access on the WWW, community-interaction workshops, and education and outreach activities. The research conducted by the scientific staff of MHO will encompass a broad range of topics involving processes and dynamics of the thermosphere, ionosphere and magnetosphere, as well as investigations of plasma waves and magnetic storm effects. Scientific emphasis will include magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling in the vicinity of the plasmasphere boundary layer, space weather effects and processes over the continental US, ionosphere-thermosphere coupling, and upper atmosphere climatology. Radar and ancillary data from MHO will be deposited in the CEDAR data base at NCAR for community use and will be made available online via the MADRIGAL database. Student and external investigator participation in these research activities, and the inclusion of Millstone Hill Observatory data in external studies will also be supported. MHO team members will continue educational activities through our Research Experiences for Undergraduates and Research Experiences for Teachers participation. The program incorporates community input and outreach activities through workshops at the annual CEDAR and URSI meetings and will encourage and support visiting students and instruments at MHO. Analysis and data distribution techniques developed for use at MHO will continue to be made available for community use and every effort will be made to make these analysis products compatible with the broad user community needs.
This NSF award provided facilities and operations support for the Millstone Hill Observatory (MHO) and the Millstone Hill UHF research radar, for a program of investigations of upper atmospheric morphology and dynamics and the near-Earth space environment coordinated with community requests and initiatives. Operations and analysis activities have been focused on the geospace processes coupling the various regions of Earth’s upper atmosphere. Experiments were centered around the community-driven World Day observing periods and a series of focused mid-latitude observations. The resultant data have been deposited in the CEDAR database at NCAR and are available through the MADRIGAL database at Millstone Hill. This award provided the principal operational support for the research activities of the Atmospheric Sciences Group (ASG) at the MIT Haystack Observatory, and resulted during the duration of this award in 101 scientific publications and another 12 manuscripts submitted or in press using Millstone Hill data or scientific analysis. Approximately 5237 hours of radar operations were executed over the 5 year interval using the production MIDAS-W software radar system at Millstone. Additional operations in the ~300 hour range were executed using a prototype system for development activity, such as meteor studies and precise electron density / electron temperature observations. Radar time was divided into 133 major experiment intervals and a regular program of system calibration daytime runs. These latter experiments also provide vertical ionospheric profiles for use by modelers and long term trend studies. Experiments were divided between a regular program of internationally coordinated World Day observations, and site-specific or regionally coordinated experiments measuring characteristics of the midlatitude and subauroral ionosphere, thermosphere, and plasmasphere. The space science community made heavy use of Millstone Hill as a NSF Geospace Facility instrument, with external users from a large number of institutions (e.g. over 23 in Year 4 of the award). The Geospace Science Center (GSC) at the Millstone Hill Facility has been developed over the course of this award for use in the control, operation, and science integration of Geospace Facilities program (NSF/GF) resources, distributed arrays of small instruments, and small satellite missions. The GSC enhances facility capabilities for supporting a wide range of science and educational activities as well as the interactive operational requirements of the next generation of Geospace science instrumentation. The GSC forms a key point of community interaction with a DASI system in the eastern half of North America. Distributed instruments are a natural focus of facility outreach and collaboration, and are a key way to involve the larger community in facility science efforts and provide science opportunities involving facility instrumentation. Science investigations concentrated on mid-latitude synoptic ionospheric plasma profiling, long duration probing of planetary wave and stratospheric warming effects coupling the lower, middle, and upper atmosphere, meteoroid head echo experiments exploring fundamental plasma processes associated with ablating micrometeors, mid-latitude stormtime response to geomagnetic disturbances and coronal mass ejections, topside flux, eclipse studies, quasi-periodic / TID effects, and radar- optical comparisons. Throughout the award, many of these studies have directly involved graduate students and faculty members from various key community institutions including Stanford University, Virginia Tech, Dartmouth College, and Boston University. Overall, the science focus of MIT Haystack ASG activities emphasized mesoscale physical processes operating in the ionosphere and thermosphere, and in particular on themes of coupling mechanisms between different atmospheric regions. As in the recent past, these trends are well in line with community science focus topics, and ASG members are leaders in many of these areas. Through support from this award, the Atmospheric Sciences Group continued its dedication to space science community service both inside and outside the Geospace Facilities program with a number of focused activities. Many of these efforts are specifically targeted at enhanced inter-Facility collaborations. The Atmospheric Sciences Group also continued its extensive participation in overall MIT Haystack education and public outreach efforts and in specific ASG focused programs. The Millstone Hill Observatory’s broad research program was well represented by ASG members at a wide range of scientific meetings, focused workshops, and community service activities. The broad participation at regional, national, and international levels maintains a high degree of collaboratory research essential to advancing current mesoscale geospace community science, and also increases visibility and user participation for NSF Geospace Facilities overall.
