HR: 1330h
AN: SA12A-1085    [PDF]
TI: Preliminary Validation of Atmospheric Neutral Density Derived From Ultraviolet Airglow Observations
AU: * Nicholas, A C
EM: andrew.nicholas@nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Thonnard, S E
EM: sthonnard@ssd5.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Picone, J M
EM: picone@uap2.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Dymond, K
EM: kdymond@ssd5.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Budzien, S A
EM: sab@ssd5.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Laboratory, 4555 Overlook Ave, Washington, DC 20375 United States
AU: Knowles, S
EM: sknowles@ssd5.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Raytheon Technical Services, 4400 FORBES BLVD, Lanham, MD 20706 United States
AU: Bennert, E
EM: ebennert@ssd5.nrl.navy.mil
AF: Praxis, 4875 EISENHOWER AVE, ALEXANDRIA, VA 22304 United States
AU: McCoy, R
EM: mccoyr@onr.navy.mil
AF: Office of Naval Research, Code 321SR, Arlington, VA 22217 United States
AB: In the past, orbit determination and prediction for resident space objects relied on climatological models to estimate atmospheric drag. Characteristic of climatology, atmospheric density models have errors that range from 10% to 15%. For Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites, the error due to an imprecise density specification is the most significant contribution to the error ellipse associated with the position of the object. Several techniques to obtain corrections for the atmospheric density models and improve orbit determination are in various stages of research and development. This paper presents ultraviolet airglow derived atmospheric density corrections for the NRLMSISE-00 model during January and February 2001. Observations of the naturally occurring airglow on the Earth's limb were obtained from the Low-Resolution Airglow and Auroral Spectrograph (LORAAS) on the Advanced Research and Global Observation Satellite (ARGOS). Inversion algorithms developed at the Naval Research Laboratory were used to retrieve neutral density profiles from the observations. The result of the inversion process produces four correction coefficients for the NRLMSISE-00 atmospheric model; one for the F10.7 cm solar flux model input parameter, and three scalars for the O, O2 and N2 model output. The proper application of these correction coefficients with NRLMSISE-00 allows for the calculation of a global total density specification. Ultraviolet airglow derived density for January and February of 2001 were first compared to climatology using the Jacchia J70 and NRLMSISE-00 models. Additionally the ultraviolet derived density was compared to global density specification from the High Accuracy Satellite Drag Model (HASDM) developed for the Air Force Battlelab. HASDM determines global atmospheric density by simultaneously evaluating the drag on a reference set of resident space objects. From the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) observations of the HASDM reference objects, in-track total density was computed using Special-K software for direct comparison to ultraviolet derived atmospheric density. The results of the preliminary validation of the ultraviolet airglow derived density specification are provided in this paper through comparisons to the techniques mentioned above.
DE: 0310 Airglow and aurora
DE: 0355 Thermosphere--composition and chemistry
DE: 0394 Instruments and techniques
SC: SPA - Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting