Report on the Activity
of Commission G
(15 July 2005)
1.
Development
of Ionospheric observation
facilities
Ha Noi Institute of Geophysics, Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology, Vietnam and National Institute of Information and
Communications Technology (NICT) of Japan agreed about plans for installation of an
ionosonde in Bac Lieu Province, 300 km south of Ho Chi Minh
City close to the magnetic equator (1.66 deg. magnetic
latitude). Bac Lieu station will be the fourth ionosonde station of SEALION (Southeast Asia Low latitude
Ionospheric Network). NICT is constructing SEALION for
the purpose of forecasting onsets of equatorial plasma bubbles and equatorial
anomaly development, which is important for the operation of GPS navigation
system.
"Coupling
Processes in the Equatorial Region (CPEA)" is a research project funded by the
Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)
as a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas. Since the beginning
of the project in 2001, we have accumulated a variety of observation equipments
at the Equatorial Atmosphere Radar (EAR) site in West Sumatra, Indonesia. The
installation of the whole equipments finishes in July 2005. By April 2005, Prof.
C. Nagasawa of Tokyo Metropolitan University installed a Rayleigh lidar and a
Fe+/Na lidar. The Rayleigh lidar is capable of
observing atmospheric temperature and density up to the altitude of 80 km. The
Fe+/Na lidar is a resonant-scatter lidar to measure ionized iron and atomic-sodium layers at
90-100 km heights. Prof. T. Ogawa, Solar-Terrestrial Environmental Laboratory,
Nagoya
University, recently
conducted the installation of the last equipment in the EAR site. That is a VHF
radar to monitor continuously backscattering echoes from meter-scale
irregularities such like equatorial plasma bubbles and sporadic E. With these
instruments of the CPEA, the EAR site became the most completed observation site
for the dynamics of the atmosphere and the ionosphere right at the geographic
equator.
A small
satellite plan was proposed to Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) by
Mesosphere-Thermosphere-Ionosphere (MTI) satellite working group of
Japan in January 2005. The satellite
aims to observe density structures of the MTI-region at low- and mid-latitudes
using the airglow emission from the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The satellite is
planned to fly in the geo-transfer orbit, and detects the global distribution of
airglows when it is near the apogee. In-situ measurement and limb observation is
carried out when it is near the perigee. The visible and infrared imager (VISI)
and far ultraviolet imager (FUVI) observe the airglow distribution with high
spatial resolution. This satellite observation is expected to connect the
fragmented information on the MTI phenomena, such as atmospheric gravity waves,
plasma bubbles, and traveling ionospheric
disturbances. Extreme ultraviolet imager (EUVI) observes He+
distribution in the plasmasphere with 30.4nm resonance
line emission. The combination of the ionospheric and
plasmaspheric observation would be a strong tool to
characterize, mitigate, and predict ionospheric
effects on the global navigation satellite systems, such as GPS. The mission
period is proposed for one year during the next solar maximum.
2.
Observation
Campaign
CPEA plans to
conduct two international observation campaigns during 2004-2005. The first
campaign, CPEA-I, was successfully conducted in March-May 2004. The second
campaign, CPEA-II, is planned in the period from September to December 2005. The
core period of the experiment is one month from middle November to middle
December. In September-October 2005, we conduct radar and lidar observations of equatorial plasma bubbles. These CPEA
campaigns are endorsed by CAWSES (Climate and Weather of the Sun-Earth System)
under SCOSTEP (The Scientific Committee On Solar-TErrestrial Physics). (Contact of CPEA-II is Dr. M.
Yamamoto, Kyoto
University, at
yamamoto@rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp).
3.
Data Analyses
and Services
NICT started to provide near-real time ionosheric total electron content (TEC) data over
Japan using GEONET (GPS Earth
Observation Network) data, as a part of Space Weather data services. http://wdc.nict.go.jp/gps-tec/latest_tec.html
TEC data are important for monitoring onsets of ionosheric storms in summer season as intense sporadic E
traces often blanket the F-region trace.
4.
Coming
Workshops
(1) IAGA
Scientific Assembly, in
Toulouse, 18-29
July 2005,
http://www.iugg.org/IAGA/index.htm
(2) URSI General Assembly, in New Delhi, India, 23-29 October 2005,
http://www.ursiga2005.org/ecm/index.php
During URSI General
Assembly cited above, a General Lecture and an intercommission session on Solar Power Satellite (SPS) are
arranged as below. Dr. Michael Rietveld of EISCAT will
also give a talk entitled, "Interactions between microwave power transmissions
from a solar power station and the ionosphere-atmosphere system" based on the
recommendation of Commission G.
U1 - GENERAL LECTURE 1
(Monday 24/10/2005 14:00-15:20)
“Solar Power Satellite
(SPS) for Sustainable Clean Energy Humanosphere” by
Prof. Hiroshi Matsumoto
HX - INTERCOMMISSION
SESSION - Solar power satellites (SPS) (I,C,P)
(Tuesday 25/10/2005
14:00-16:20) Session
subjects include: passive and active microwave devices, antenna and rectenna, huge antenna arrays, retrodirective systems, antennas in plasma, self
calibration, compatibility with telecommunications and radio astronomy, radio
frequency interference and electromagnetic compatibility (RFI and EMC), the
interaction of heavy ions ejected from the electric spacecraft propulsion
engine. (Conveners: H.Kozo Hashimoto, Japan: kozo@rish.kyoto-u.ac.jp and D. Tatsuo Itoh, USA:
itoh@ee.ucla.edu)
(Prepared by T. Maruyama
and M. Yamamoto)