NASA Announces Future Launch for USU-Led Space Weather Mission

NASA announced that the launch of the Utah State University Space Dynamics Laboratory and College of Science-led Atmospheric Waves Experiment, or AWE, is scheduled for December 2023. The NASA-funded instrument will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to the International Space Station. AWE Principal Investigator Dr. Michael Taylor from USU's College of Science leads a team of scientists that will provide new details about how the weather on Earth interacts with, and affects, space weather. To do that, the AWE instrument, measuring about 54 centimeters by one meter and weighing less than 57 kilograms, will peer into Earth's upper atmosphere from an orbit of about 400 kilometers above to provide unprecedented images of Earth's gravity waves as they rise through the mesopause, the mesosphere's upper boundary, and into other parts of the ionosphere. Atmospheric gravity waves are generated by weather events on Earth, including strong winds that shoot upward as they collide with large mountains, hurricanes that create gravity waves directly through high winds and indirectly by interacting with underlying topography, and seismic activities such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Impacts from atmospheric gravity waves and space weather can adversely affect satellites that provide seemingly ubiquitous services across the globe and for human spaceflight missions.