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 
Sensing Sensors Using Integrating Spheres

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
2 The Photonics Group,West Chester, OH

Using the LaserSafePC software for laser safety calculations 

Video

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

Video

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
Video

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