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NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Dynamic PCA and Machine Learning Tool for Automated Identification of Solar Wind Disturbances Impacting Earth’s Magnetosphere

Earth’s magnetosphere is continuously impacted by solar wind and interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) disturbances, such as shocks, discontinuities, magnetic clouds and more. Understanding how such disturbances propagate from the Sun and what is their impact on the different magnetospheric domains is key to understanding and forecasting energy transfer from the solar wind to Earth. The large number of overlapping solar wind and magnetospheric missions carrying magnetometers and the recent advances in communications and data storage technologies have enabled an unprecedented quantity of high-fidelity magnetic field data captured by in-situ spacecraft to be available at the click of a button. However, this massive quantity of available data can prove unwieldy for researchers, limiting the identification of interesting phenomena and disturbances to a relatively small percentage of the total dataset. Several techniques have been previously developed for automated identification of specific types of magnetic anomalies, but these methods are typically mission-specific and can be difficult to generalize. We present initial results for a generic method of automated anomaly detection in magnetic field measurements based on dimensionality reduction and unsupervised clustering via machine learning. The benefit of our technique is its high degree of generalizability and flexibility which make it a most useful data survey tool for a wide range of magnetic field datasets. This method can also be applied simultaneously to other observed time-series properties like plasma density, pressure, and velocity for more accurate event identification. Additionally, the application of this method to data captured by multiple spacecraft enables the simultaneous identification of disturbances and the determination of their propagation characteristics. Initial evaluation of this technique has been performed using data from Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) and THEMIS-ARTEMIS missions, providing a testbed scenario for the future Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite (HERMES) platform instruments that will measure solar wind and IMF properties from lunar orbit onboard the Gateway station.

Miguel Martinez-Ledesma↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Optical Performance of Reflectivity Control Devices (RCDs) for Solar Sail Applications

Reflectivity control devices (RCDs) based on polymer dispersed liquid crystals were fabricated for Solar Cruiser, a SmallSat NASA Pathfinder Mission consisting of a 1653 square meter solar sail that would establish an artificial orbit sunward of the L1 Lagrange point for heliophysics observations. Here we describe the optical characterization of these birefringent electro-optic devices including thin film measurements and analysis, hyperspectral bidirectional reflectance distribution function measurements, and radiometric analysis. These measurements demonstrate the promise of RCDs for roll control and momentum management of solar sails.

Solar Sails↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA’s Geospace Dynamics Constellation—Providing the first Systematic Measurements of Global Magnetospheric Energy Inputs and Ionosphere-Thermosphere Responses

The Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) is NASA's next strategic Living With a Star mission. GDC's goals are: 1) Understand how the high-latitude ionosphere-thermosphere system responds to variable solar wind/magnetosphere forcing; and 2) Understand how internal processes in the global ionosphere-thermosphere system redistribute mass, momentum, and energy. Planned for launch by the end of the decade, GDC will use six identical observatories, each identically instrumented to fully characterize the magnetospheric drivers of the I-T system as well as the global response of the ionized and neutral gases. GDC will do this with a series of orbital configurations that will enable it to study the widest range of spatial and temporal scales to date, ranging from hundreds of kilometers and several seconds to tens of minutes, and extending through the regional to the global scale. This talk presents GDC's current status, measurement capabilities, sampling scheme, and model development efforts and show how GDC will fit into the larger Heliophysics ecosystem, by 1) obtaining critically needed scientific observations; 2) providing a source for real-time space weather and situational awareness, as well as retrospective studies to further the science of space weather; 3) serving as a "strategic hub" for other space-based and ground-based efforts that want to leverage GDC to perform complementary science. To get the most benefit from GDC’s observations, it will be critical to identify partnerships with other research efforts in the ITM and Geospace arenas, including those utilizing space-based, ground-based, or theoretical investigations. We particularly would like to discuss with groups who are planning or considering observational campaigns during the GDC era, to find ways to leverage GDC observations to do synergistic science that could not be done otherwise.

Douglas E Rowland↗

NASA NTRS2023

Assembly of the FOXSI-4 Mirror Modules

The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager 4 (FOXSI 4) is a heliophysics sounding rocket experiment that is currently in its fourth launch campaign. The payload is comprised of seven 2 m focal length X-ray telescopes, which each consist of a grazing incidence mirror module that focuses x-rays onto an imaging detector. For this fourth flight, Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) designed, built, and tested three new high-angular-resolution optics. This paper describes the design and assembly of the FOXSI 4 mirror modules.

Stephen D. Bongiorno↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Solar Flare Catalog for SPICE Instrument on the Solar Orbiter

Studying the solar corona, the outermost layer of solar atmosphere, is a pivotal part of understanding the dynamic relations between solar activity and the solar wind, which can disrupt the near-Earth environment. Solar flares emit electromagnetic radiation in the solar corona, capable of releasing large amounts of energy in a matter of minutes. Flares can also be associated with Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and affect Earth’s ionosphere. One instrument that can be used to study flares is the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrumentaboard the Solar Orbiter (SolO). SPICE is a high-resolution extreme ultraviolet stigmatic slit spectrometer that covers emission lines formed from the solar chromosphere to corona. Since SPICE is a stigmatic slit spectrometer, the instrument can only take in data from a small spatial area on the Sun at a time. Due to the fast and unpredictable nature of flare events, it can be difficult to determine if and when SPICE has observed a flare. For this reason, we have created a catalog of flares observed by SPICE. This catalog of observational data was assembledby cross referencing data between different solar missions, including data from SolO’s E xtreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) and Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX), Solar Dynamics Observatory’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (SDO/AIA) instrument, and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R). Supplemental analysis of the SPICE solar flare data includes Gaussian line fitting for flares of particular interest. The catalog can be utilized to locate and study coronal loop structures and flare ribbons. This SPICE solar flare catalog and additional supplemental analysis allows for the ease of identification of useful SPICE spectral data and multi-instrument analysis in order to study solar flare activity. It will be open for use by the Solar Orbiter and broader Heliophysics communities.

Anneliese L. Schmidt↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Highlights of Space Weather Tools and Resources at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center

In this presentation, we showcase a diverse array of tools and resources offered by the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) to advance space weather research and support space weather services. Highlights include the Run-on-Request (RoR) and continuous run simulation services, the multi-purpose integrated Space Weather Analysis (iSWA) system (has been used for space weather monitoring, anomaly resolution, and education), space weather event database DONKI, the validation tool called CAMEL, and various scoreboard activities serving as model validation efforts before a space weather event/condition occurs (this type of pre-event validation enhances the accuracy and credibility of space weather predictions from the community). In addition, CCMC’s is an active participant providing strong support for NASA’s Heliophysics Big Year activities. Above all, our team welcomes collaborations in the broad range of áreas. Through this presentation, we aim to inspire engagement and collaboration among latinoamerican scientific communities and CCMC.

Yihua Zheng↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Lunar Gateway Charging and Effects on Low-Energy Electron Measurements

The Electron Electrostatic Analyzer (EEA) is part of the HERMES instrument suite on Lunar Gateway and is designed to measure electrons in the energy range from 1 eV to 18 keV. Electrons in this range can be deflected or blocked from entering a detector by electric fields from a charged spacecraft platform, so many heliophysics missions (MMS, Cluster, etc.) use active potential control to minimize stray electric fields which would corrupt low-energy plasma measurements. Gateway, however, does not have such capabilities so the surface charging effects will influence the electron data. Further, some elements of Gateway partially block the instrument’s field of view to space. The effects of the Gateway platform on the low-energy electron population must be understood to maximize the accuracy of the EEA data. To investigate the electrostatic environment near Gateway and its effects on the EEA measurements, we use Nascap-2K to model the expected charging of Gateway under representative solar wind, magnetosheathic, and magnetospheric conditions. Next, we use the potential and electric field outputs from Nascap-2K along with in-house particle tracing codes to investigate how low-energy electrons are perturbed, blocked, or deflected by the spacecraft. We discuss how these perturbations impact the plasma moments computed from the EEA data and possible approaches for correcting the charging effects including application of advanced methods such as neural networks. In addition to electrons from the space environment being influenced by the electrostatic environment around Gateway, photoelectrons generated on Gateway surfaces will also be measured by EEA. We are investigating how knowledge of the potentials of various Gateway surfaces can be extracted from these measured photoelectrons using advanced numerical modeling and analysis. Such information would be valuable for validating charging models and planning mission operations around the platform. Finally, we discuss how the specific workflow developed for Gateway can be extended to a generalized process that is applicable to other future missions. As the space industry prepares for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit, the need to obtain accurate space weather data from rideshare science payloads is critical. Our process for removing platform effects from the science data serves as a pathfinder for leveraging advanced simulations to maximize science returns and ensure the safety and success of future crewed missions.

Miles Bengtson↗

NASA NTRS2023

Assembly of the FOXSI-4 Mirror Modules

The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager 4 (FOXSI-4) is a heliophysics sounding rocket experiment that is currently in its fourth launch campaign. The payload is comprised of seven x-ray telescopes, which each consist of a 2 m focal length grazing incidence mirror module that focuses x-rays onto an imaging detector. For this fourth flight, Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) designed, built, and tested three new high-angular-resolution mirror module assemblies (MMAs). This paper describes the design and assembly of the FOXSI-4 MMAs.

FOXSI-4↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Increasing Accessibility of the Runs-on-Request Metadata, Data, and Services at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center

Space weather models are essential to our ability to understand and predict space weather events. For over 20 years, the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC, https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov) has been providing transformative tools and platforms for hosting space weather models and associated services, free and open to anyone interested in studying space weather. Runs-on-Request system (ROR) is one of the popular services at CCMC that permits researchers and other end-users to exercise cutting-edge hosted heliophysics and space weather models using a simple web interface, as well as collaborate on an extensive and continuously growing archive of over 28,000 model run results. Similar to other projects at CCMC, ROR has grown as a community project that strives to be open and transparent to its users. In this poster, we discuss some of our recent efforts to further expose ROR data, metadata, and services to the end users through both custom and community-developed access protocols. We also discuss how in-house science support provided by the CCMC team plays a paramount role in making ROR data and services truly accessible by the community.

Maksym Petrenko↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Maryland Space Weather UnderGround (SWUG) Educational Outreach Program for Solar Eclipse Study

Space Weather UnderGround (SWUG) is an educational outreach program that provides hands-on experiences in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to high school and undergraduate students. It has three ultimate goals: 1. Educating the future STEM workforce. 2. Building a cost-effective, research-capable ground 3. magnetometer array across the United States. Collecting geomagnetic field data at high spatial resolution for heliophysics research. SWUG students build, test, and deploy the Simple Aurora Monitor (SAM)-III kit, purchased by Reeve Engineers. The SAM-III kit is a fluxgate magnetometer that measures geomagnetic field changes at a resolution of 1 nT/sec. Dr. Charles Smith initiated the SWUG program at the University of New Hampshire, and it has since expanded to Alaska and Maryland. This presentation introduces the Maryland SWUG activities. The MD-SWUG program was started in the Fall of 2022 with the goal of deploying magnetometers to the solar eclipse sites in 2023 and 2024. Two student-built magnetometers were deployed to the Southwest Research Institute and the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the 2023 annular solar eclipse, with plans to deploy at least four magnetometers to the 2024 total solar eclipse sites, including the University of Texas at Dallas. During a solar eclipse, reduced solar irradiance weakens ionospheric currents and reduces geomagnetic fields by up to 30 nT at the eclipse sites. A recent study suggested that solar eclipses impact geomagnetic fields not only along the eclipse path but also at their magnetic conjugate locations. The SWUG program will help us understand this electrodynamic coupling between the conjugate locations during a solar eclipse by providing better data coverage along the solar eclipse path.

Hyunju Connor↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Nanoflare heating in coronal X-ray Bright Points

Understanding the heating of the non-flaring solar corona is an active topic of research in heliophysics. It is well accepted that magnetic fields are mainly responsible for coronal heating. The photospheric driver randomly moves the foot-points of the magnetic field lines, and either generates waves or the quasi-static buildup of magnetic energy, depending on the timescale of motion. Heating by the dissipation of the magnetic energy is termed as DC heating while the dissipation of wave is known as AC heating mechanism. Both the AC and DC heating mechanisms can lead to impulsive heating events, termed nanoflares. The magnitude and frequency of these nanoflares determine whether they can adequately satisfy the coronal heating budget. Thus it is of great importance to study the nanoflares properties to validate their role in coronal heating. Individual nanoflares are difficult to detect with the present generation instruments, however their presence can be inferred through indirect observational techniques combined with simulated nanoflare-heated plasma emissions. We combined the observed emission properties of coronal X-ray bright points (XBP) in EUV and X-ray wavelengths with the simulated nanoflare heated plasma to understand nanoflare properties and their contribution in coronal heating. Our results indicate that the heating of coronal XBPs could be explained by frequent nanoflares. Further we demonstrate that the sensitive spectroscopic observations in X-ray wavelength are crucial to diagnose the nanoflare properties.

Biswajit Mondal↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Modeling and Visualization of Geomagnetic Storms at the CCMC

The Community Coordinated Modeling Center is greatly expanding activities in geospace in recent years, including the addition of new models or outputs (including WACCM-X, SAMI3-TIEGCM, HYPERS, GAMERA test runs and WAM-IPE real time outputs) that expand the range of available views or analysis activities in geospace during the upcoming Solar Maximum and Heliophysics Big Year. We are now routinely adding to a library of geomagnetic storms using anew request interface for the Space Weather Modeling Framework(SWMF). We are placing continuous run model simulation outputs as run series onto the CCMC web site where look at quick-look graphics, perform online visualization and request outputs for any day covered by the results.We demonstrate examples and results of online visualization and analysis tools that are also placed onto the cloud to support Open Science and collaborative research.

Lutz Rastaetter↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Critical Developments Made Through the Sounding Rocket Program

Scientists have flown scientific instruments on sub-orbital rockets since the years following World War II when excess rocket motors were made available. Much of our knowledge of heliophysics and astrophysics that now seem well accepted and commonplace have been discovered through the sounding rocket program. The program has also been key in both developing technologies and training scientists and engineers, which have allowed for instruments to be developed for long-term operations satellites. In this talk, I will review critical developments that emerged from the sounding rocket program that have had a lasting impact on our fields.

Amy Winebarger↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Balloon Program Overview (2021-2023)

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Balloon Program offers low-cost access to a near-space environment. As the science community's needs continue to evolve, the NASA Balloon Program adjusts to support the scientific community, providing enhanced capabilities across a spectrum of balloon-related disciplines. The disciplines supported by the NASA Balloon Program include astrophysics, heliophysics, planetary science, earth science, technology development, and education. A broad overview of the NASA Balloon Program that touches on critical highlights, including launch locations, standard systems, and development efforts will be presented. In addition, the specific campaigns supported from 2021 through 2023 will be discussed. The period under review witnessed significant strides in balloon technology, payload instrumentation, and mission design, all aimed at enhancing the Program's scientific capabilities—the integration of cutting-edge technologies allowed for executing ambitious missions, and fostering collaboration with domestic and international partners. Specific information on commercial satellite communications with off-the-shelf hardware will be provided. The Program's strategic goals, emphasizing its commitment to advancing atmospheric and astrophysical research, are highlighted via the GUSTO mission. The Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory or GUSTO mission was the first NASA Explorer-class mission to utilize the balloon platform. The Program is vital in supporting educational and outreach activities, fostering the next generation of scientists and engineers. Collaborative efforts with educational institutions and outreach programs have expanded public engagement and inspired students to pursue careers in STEM fields. The Program's versatility and success in facilitating groundbreaking research underscore its continued significance in advancing our understanding of the Earth and the universe.

GUSTO↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Dynamic PCA and Machine Learning Tool for Automated Identification of Solar Wind Disturbances Impacting Earth’s Magnetosphere

Miguel Martinez-Ledesma↗

NASA NTRS2023

Mesoscale Phenomena and Their Contribution to the Global Response: A Focus on the Magnetotail Transition Region and Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling

An important question that is being increasingly studied across subdisciplines of Heliophysics is “how do mesoscale phenomena contribute to the global response of the system?” This review paper focuses on this question within two specific but interlinked regions in Near-Earth space: the magnetotail’s transition region to the inner magnetosphere and the ionosphere. There is a concerted effort within the Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) community to understand the degree to which mesoscale transport in the magnetotail contributes to the global dynamics of magnetic flux transport and dipolarization, particle transport and injections contributing to the storm-time ring current development, and the substorm current wedge. Because the magnetosphere-ionosphere is a tightly coupled system, it is also important to understand how mesoscale transport in the magnetotail impacts auroral precipitation and the global ionospheric system response. Groups within the Coupling, Energetics and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions Program (CEDAR) community have also been studying how the ionosphere-thermosphere responds to these mesoscale drivers. These specific open questions are part of a larger need to better characterize and quantify mesoscale “messengers” or “conduits” of information—magnetic flux, particle flux, current, and energy—which are key to understanding the global system. After reviewing recent progress and open questions, we suggest datasets that, if developed in the future, will help answer these questions.

transition region↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Science Discovery Engine: Connecting Heterogeneous Scientific Data and Information

Transformative science often occurs at the boundaries of different disciplines. Making interdisciplinary science data, software and documentation discoverable and accessible is essential to enabling transformative science. However, connecting this diverse and heterogeneous information is often a challenge due to several factors including the dispersed and sometimes isolated nature of data and the semantic differences between topical areas. NASA’s Science Discovery Engine (SDE) has developed several approaches to tackling these challenges. The SDE is a unified, insightful search experience that enables discovery of NASA’s open science data across five topical areas: astrophysics, biological and physical sciences, Earth science, heliophysics and planetary science. In this presentation, we will discuss our efforts to develop a systematic scientific curation workflow to integrate diverse content into a single search environment. We will also share lessons learned from our work to create a metadata crosswalk across the five disciplines.

Kaylin Bugbee↗

NASA NTRS2023

Relativistic Electron Beams Accelerated By an Interplanetary Shock

Context: Collisionless shock waves have long been considered to be among the most prolific particle accelerators in the universe. Shocks alter the plasma they propagate through, and often exhibit complex evolution across multiple scales. Interplanetary (IP) traveling shocks have been recorded in situ for over half a century and act as a natural laboratory for experimentally verifying various aspects of large-scale collisionless shocks. A fundamentally interesting problem in both heliophysics and astrophysics is the acceleration of electrons to relativistic energies (> 300 keV) by traveling shocks. Aims: The reason for an incomplete understanding of electron acceleration at IP shocks is due to scale-related challenges and a lack of instrumental capabilities. This Letter presents the first observations of field-aligned beams of relativistic electrons upstream of an IP shock, observed thanks to the instrumental capabilities of Solar Orbiter. This study presents the characteristics of the electron beams close to the source and contributes to the understanding of their acceleration mechanism. Methods: On 25 July 2022, Solar Orbiter encountered an IP shock at 0.98 AU. The shock was associated with an energetic storm particle event, which also featured upstream field-aligned relativistic electron beams observed 14 min prior to the actual shock crossing. The distance of the beam’s origin was investigated using a velocity dispersion analysis (VDA). Peak-intensity energy spectra were analyzed and compared with those obtained from a semi-analytical fast-Fermi acceleration model. Results: By leveraging Solar Orbiter’s high temporal resolution Energetic Particle Detector (EPD), we successfully showcase an IP shock’s ability to accelerate relativistic electron beams. Our proposed acceleration mechanism offers an explanation for the observed electron beam and its characteristics, while we also explore the potential contributions of more complex mechanisms.

acceleration of particles↗