Atmospheric Oxygen Cubesat Mission for Mesosphere Lower Thermosphere Wave Dynamics (AtmOCube)

The Atmospheric Oxygen Cubesat (AtmOCube) mission aims to derive global distributions of mesoscale gravity waves (GWs) in the Mesosphere Lower Thermosphere (MLT), including their 3D wave vectors. The AtmOCube mission will consist of one 16U satellite with two monolithic spatial heterodyne interferometers (SHI) for atmospheric temperature sounding, both viewing O2 atmospheric band emission in the anti-ram direction. The AtmOCube mission shall demonstrate that 3D observations of temperature in this region can be used to determination the 3D wave vector of GWs, their momentum flux and propagation direction. Specifically, the AtmOCube mission will answer the science questions of: What is the global distribution of zonal and meridional momentum flux and its vertical gradient for mesoscale GWs in the MLT? and How do mesoscale GWs in the MLT vary with season for different altitudes and locations? From a scientific perspective the AtmOCube mission will address a significant gap in understanding the characteristics of the propagation and dissipation of GWs in the data-poor z~100-120 km region. The AtmOCube mission will also involve a significant international collaboration between the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado and Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZ Jülich), Germany. The AtmoCube mission contributes to NASA's strategic goals and objectives by addressing the need to better understand atmospheric coupling and dynamics. The AtmOCube mission will have significant student involvement and will contribute significantly to NASA's objective of training future mission scientists and engineers. In addition, the observations will provide context for observations from other current NASA missions such as GOLD and AWE.

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