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Applied Physics Lab wins $4 million grant for space-weather mapping
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A Bethesda-based company will work with Johns Hopkins University to decipher weather in space and hopefully make it safer for astronauts and other equipment in the outer reaches.
Iridium Satellite LLC’s 66 communications satellites can measure electrical storms impacting the far limits of Earth’s atmosphere.
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel will begin using these satelites to globally map electric exchanges between the upper atmosphere and space through a $4 million National Science Foundation grant.
The Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE) will provide the first ever real-time measurements of space weather and the impact of solar winds on the Earth. AMPERE also will enhance scientific understanding of Earth’s surroundings, and improve space weather forecasting.
“Earth’s space environment can completely reconfigure in as little as 30 minutes,” said APL’s Brian J. Anderson, principal investigator for AMPERE.
“Presently, we do not have enough satellites making these measurements. It’s like trying to understand a hurricane with only a few weather stations measuring temperature. AMPERE will give us the first-ever global, real-time picture of what’s really happening during these dynamic space-weather storms.”
Nearby electrical storms in the space environment, driven by solar disturbances, can deliver more than 10 million amps to the upper atmosphere, thousands of times what a typical power plant puts out. These spikes can damage some of the 800 satellites used for global communications as well as endanger astronauts, high-altitude aircraft and satellites, and electric power grids.
khille@baltimoreexaminer.com
