The Solar-Terrestrial Energy Program (STEP) is an international program to advance the understanding of the transfer of energy and mass through the solar-terrestrial environment. STEP involves ground-based, aircraft, balloon, rocket and satellite experiments; theory and simulation studies; and dedicated data and information systems. The program will take advantage of results obtained by spacecraft missions and related programs such as NSF's GEM, CEDAR, and MAX91, research and monitoring activities of NOAA/SEL, and various research activites supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and other key sponsors of solar-terrestrial research. The framework of STEP consists of Priority Areas, each one with a goal of understanding the processes controlling energy and mass transfer between specific regions of the solar-terrestrial system. The scientific research in STEP is organized into a limited number of well- defined cooperative projects proposed by the scientific communities of the participating countries. To define, plan and implement the research coordination, Working Groups for each Priority Area have been established. STEP is the key international coordination effort, fully inclusive of various research modes, active during the first half of the 1990's. This grant provides partial support of the STEP Symposium on initial results from STEP facilities and theory campaigns to be held August 24-27, 1992, at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Additional support for this symposium is anticipated from NASA, NSF, NOAA, and ONR.
