On May 21, NASA concluded the data collection phase of its Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE), which exceeded its initial two-year timeline. This innovative instrument, which was attached to the International Space Station (ISS) since November 2023, focused on studying atmospheric gravity waves. These waves, created by strong winds over mountains or severe weather events like storms and hurricanes, ripple through the atmosphere. AWE searched for these waves using airglow—colorful bands of light high above the Earth.
“The AWE mission has shown that our atmosphere is more than just a barrier; it’s a dynamic ocean in the sky,” said Joe Westlake, director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division. This mission allowed scientists to visualize how weather patterns on Earth, like thunderstorms or hurricanes, send these invisible ripples toward space, shaping the conditions that affect satellites and communications.
Throughout its 30-month mission, AWE captured more than 80 million nighttime infrared images, essential for observing airglow. It tracked atmospheric gravity waves from significant weather events, including outbreaks of tornadoes in May 2024 and the impact of Hurricane Helene on Florida’s coast in September 2024.
Ludger Scherliess, the primary investigator of AWE, highlighted how these observations revealed different wave patterns resulting from various storms. For instance, the waves seen from a Texas thunderstorm were smaller and more chaotic than those generated by other storms earlier in the month.
Understanding these atmospheric gravity waves is vital. They cause variations in plasma density in the upper atmosphere, which can disrupt radio signals essential for navigation and communication. A recent study showed that the most impactful gravity waves have horizontal wavelengths between 30 and 300 kilometers, precisely the range AWE was designed to measure.
Now that AWE has completed its mission, it will be replaced by the CLARREO Pathfinder, a new instrument designed to make extremely accurate measurements of sunlight reflected by the Earth and the Moon. This exchange reflects the ISS’s role as a versatile research platform.
Shortly, a robotic arm will remove AWE so it can be packed into a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft for a controlled re-entry. However, AWE’s data will live on; it will be available for public access and further research. Interactive visualizations of AWE’s observations are already online. Users can explore atmospheric gravity waves as the ISS orbits the Earth. You can find this data on Utah State University’s website.
Launched on November 9, 2023, AWE was operated by the Explorers Program Office at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with its instrument built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory at Utah State University.
For more details, listen to episode 334 of NASA’s podcast, “Houston We Have a Podcast,” recorded on January 26, 2024.
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Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE), Goddard Space Flight Center, Heliophysics, Heliophysics Division, International Space Station (ISS), Space Weather, The Sun
