RAPID: Sodium (Na) Lidar Validation of MIGHTI Daytime Temperature Observations Onboard NASA ICON Satellite

This grant provides funding to support an effort to achieve ground truth validation of Michelson Interferometer for Global High-resolution Thermospheric Imaging (MIGHTI) Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mesopause measurements near 95km to resolve an issue suggesting the existence of a bias in the comparisons of MIGHTI measurements with Utah State Sodium (Na) lidar daytime climatological measurements. The ICON satellite view of the northern hemisphere may be reversed toward the southern hemisphere.

This would mean that the possibility of overflight measurements by MIGHTI that are simultaneous with the Utah State University (USU) daytime lidar measurements would not be feasible.

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.