OpTeC Colloquium
OpTeC sponsors a colloquium throughout the academic year. This is a forum where a wide range of optical science and engineering topics are discussed at a level that can be understood by a broad spectrum of optics students, staff, and faculty. The primary purposes are to train students to give effective scientific talks and to promote cross-disciplinary interactions of students, staff, faculty, and local industry employees. Speakers include MSU students, staff, and faculty, and visitors from external universities, research labs, and companies.
Join our colloquium on
Thursday, September 12, 2024 at 4:10 pm.
Norm Asbjornson Hall, Room 149
Click here to join via WebEx
Printable Flyer
Exploring Atmospheric Gravity Waves: NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment on the International Space Station
Jed Hancock, Ph.D.,
Space Dynamics Laboratory
Utah State University
Abstract
Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory recently developed and delivered NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) mission. AWE is a Heliophysics Small Explorers Mission of Opportunity designed to investigate how terrestrial weather affects space weather via small-scale atmospheric gravity waves (GWs) produced in Earth’s atmosphere. Following its launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in November 2023, AWE began a 2-year mission to explore the global distribution of AGWs, study the processes controlling their propagation throughout the upper atmosphere, and quantify their impacts on the ionosphere–thermosphere–mesosphere (ITM) system.
The AWE science instrument is an ISS–compatible version of the Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper (AMTM)—a wide field-of-view Shortwave Infrared (SWIR) imager that quantifies gravity wave-induced temperature disturbances in the hydroxyl (OH) airglow layer, which lies near the mesopause at ~87 km altitude. The AMTM’s four identical telescopes make continuous nighttime observations of the P1(2) and P1(4) emission lines of the OH (3,1) band, as well as the atmospheric background simultaneously, from which the OH layer temperature is derived. AWE images are collected once per second, co-added, and processed into temperature swaths using correction algorithms derived from ground calibration test results. Global coverage of the GWs in the OH layer is achieved about every four days, enabling regional and seasonal studies and characterization of AGW ‘hot spots.’ This talk will present an overview of the AWE mission, including science objectives, measurement technique, instrument design and development, pre-launch performance and environmental testing, data processing, and a brief look at on-orbit science results.
Biographical Sketch
Dr. Jed Hancock, as the president of the Space Dynamics Laboratory’s Civil Space Division at Utah State University, oversees a portfolio of sensor system and small satellite projects for government, academic, and commercial customers. His successful record of leading research includes the development of IR, visible, and UV systems such as NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex Camera Suite (OCAMS) detector assemblies and cameras for the NASA Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission. Currently, he is the system engineer for the NASA Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) instrument and is actively involved in developing future instrumentation for the search for life on the surface of Europa.
Dr. Hancock received an undergraduate degree and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from Utah State University. He earned a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona and was class valedictorian. Dr. Hancock loves to share his enthusiasm for the sciences and learning by teaching classes at the University and serving in his community.
Past Speakers
Date | Speaker | Group | Summary |
---|---|---|---|
6/13/2024 |
Matthew Birkebk |
Labsphere |
Fundamental Calibrations for Remote |
11/30/2023 |
Stefan Heinemann |
Phix, North America |
Packaging technologies of integrated photonics for quantum technology |
4/27/2023 |
Allison Barto |
Ball Aerospace |
Engineering Discovery: Building NASA's James Webb Space Telescope |
3/30/2023 |
Thomas Coleman |
Silixa, LLC |
Fiber optic distributed sensing for environmental and infrastructure monitoring |
3/23/2023 |
John Howell |
Chapman University |
Doppler Gyroscopes: Do we really understand the gyroscope? |
2/16/2023 |
Krishna Rupavatharam, Ph.D. |
Spectrum Lab |
Perspectives on the evolution of microwave and quantum photonics at Spectrum Lab |
2/9/2023 |
John W. Sheppard, Ph.D., FIEE |
MSU Gianforte School of Computing |
Demystifying machine learning through eXplainable AI |
1/26/2023 |
Finland Photonics |
Finnish Photonics Cluster |
Photonics in Finland |
12/8/2022 |
Nicholas Borys. Ph.D. |
MSU Physics |
An introduction to the MonArk NSF Quantum Foundry |
10/12/2022 |
Alex Hills |
Carnegie Mellon University |
Mitigating LEO-to-GEO satellite interference |
4/14/2022 |
Stephen Schultz |
Brigham Young University, Electrical & computer Engineering |
Dynamic measurement of soft body armor using optical fiber sensing |
3/31/2022 |
Bradley Whitaker |
MSU Electrical & Computer Engineering |
How machine learning can help scientists who shoot fish and insects with lasers |
2/24/2022 |
Tom Hausekn |
Optica |
Hot topics in optics and photonics |
2/25/2021 |
Jim Webb1 & Scott Wohlstein2 |
1 G.L. Services, Hertfordshire, England |
Using the LaserSafePC software for laser safety calculations |
2/4/2021 |
Brian D'Urso |
MSU Physics Department |
Towards precision pulsed levitated optomechanics in a magneto-gravitational trap |
1/21/2021 |
Wataru Nakagawa |
MSU ECE Department |
Nanophotonics Applications and Sabbatical Exploration |
1/14/2021 |
Nathan Kuehl Bryan Scherrer |
MSU Physics and ECE Dep'ts | Kuehl: Troubleshooting, repair and calibration of Burleigh WA-1500 Wavemeter. Scherrer: Model and simulation of wing-beat modulation lidar for making 3D maps of flying insects . VIDEO |
11/19/2020 | Dr. Charles Kankelborg | MSU Physics Department |
Designing a far ultraviolet spectrometer for the sun as a starAbstract |
11/12/2020 | Dr. Ioannis Roudis | MSU ECE Department | Nonlinear noise in coherent optical communications systems Abstract |
4/09/2015 | Dr. James G. Wessel | Seagate Corporation | Hard Disc-Drive Recording |
3/19/2015 | Dr. Jake Jacobsen | Synopsys, Optical Solution Group | A review of optical design software at Synopsys |
2/05/2015 | Dr. Mark A. Wistey | ECE Department, University of Notre Dame | Paths to record lasers and solar cells--and on cheap silicon |
11/24/2014 | Dr. Olav Solgaard | ECE Department, Stanford University | Miniaturized endoscopes and implantable sensors for in-vivo studies of cancer biology |
11/6/2014 | Dr. Kirk Knobelspiesse | NASA Ames Research Center | Cloud thermodynamic phase detection with polarimetrically sensitive passive sky radiometers. |
10/30/2014 | Dr. Kris Merkel | President & CEO S2 Corporation, Bozeman, MT | S2 Extreme Bandwidth Analyzer and Correlator (EBAC):Updates on Improvements and Demonstrations |
11/14/2013 | Dr. Upendra Singh | NASA Langley Research Center | Development of a pulsed 2-micron integrated-path differential absorption lidar for CO2 measurements |
10/31/2013 | Qing Gu | University of California - San Diego | Semiconductor nanolasers for dense chip-scale integration |
9/16/2013 | Dr. Jim Schwiegerling | College of Optical Sciences - University of Arizona | Leading edge optics for optimizing vision |
5/14/2013 | Dr. John Egan | Advanced Photonic Crystals | The benefits of low temperature hydrothermal crystal growth |
4/25/2013 | Dr. Edwin ("Ted") Heilweil | National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) | Time-resolved terahertz studies of carrier dynamics in P3HT and zinc-phthalocyanine/C60 nanolayered thin films |
2/26/2013 | Dr. Larry Johnson and Dr. Mark Carroll | Newport Corporation | Part 1. Overview of laser diode technology and applications; Part 2. Job opportunities and desired skills for graduates at Newport/ILX Lightwave |
2/8/2013 | Dr. Toralf Scharf | Institute of Microtechnology, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland | From achromatic microlenses to submicron focusing: physical optics at the micro-scale |