NSF Award
2432335
A 2-day workshop in Paso Robles, California in November 2024 will bring together scientists, engineers, educators, and commercial suborbital vehicle operators. The goal is to explore the potential for reusable suborbital vehicles to enable innovative research on the upper atmosphere of the Earth (specifically, from 45 km to 110 km altitudes). This atmospheric region plays a crucial role in space weather, space climate, and atmospheric change but remains one of the least understood and most complex environments in our solar system. At the workshop, discussions will spur cross-disciplinary collaborations and open up new modes of investigation that can revolutionize our understanding of the upper atmosphere. The discussions will also identify innovative opportunities for hands-on student engagement with real space missions and STEM workforce training.<br/><br/>The mesosphere lower thermosphere (MLT) region of the atmosphere is poorly sampled as it is too high for aircraft and balloons to access, yet too low for most orbital satellites and ground-based sensing techniques to adequately observe and collect in-situ data. Commercial reusable suborbital vehicles have the potential to offer frequent, lower-cost, in-situ sampling and direct observations of the MLT and significantly augment current balloons and sounding rocket studies. Discussion topics at the workshop will include: emerging science questions and future research needs in the mesosphere/thermosphere; next-generation suborbital vehicle capabilities and performance for aeronomy and atmospheric science; innovations in instrumentation, miniaturized sensors, and data systems for suborbital missions; and educational opportunities. <br/><br/>The workshop is supported by the NSF Space Weather Research program with co-funding from the Aeronomy program.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
