CEDAR email: Engaging with GDC at AGU -- GDC Town Hall Thursday Dec 15 1245-1345

[Rowland, Douglas (GSFC-6750)]

NASA’s Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) mission is a Living With a Star mission designed to to provide the first multipoint measurements of the global ionosphere-thermosphere response to high latitude magnetospheric energy inputs, and the processes that redistribute mass, momentum, and energy from the high latitudes throughout the globe. GDC is currently expected to launch by the end of the decade, and will consist of six identically-instrumented spacecraft in 350-400 km altitude circular orbits with inclinations near 80-82 degrees. The six orbit planes will have different inclinations so that they precess differentially, allowing the constellation to scan a range of latitudinal/longitudinal scales over its three-year primary mission.

GDC is currently in Phase A, and NASA HQ has selected three Interdisciplinary Science teams (IDS) and three science investigations/instruments: AETHER (plasma density and electron temperature), CAPE (“auroral” energetic ion and electron populations), and MoSAIC (neutral and ionized gas wind/drift, density, temperature, and chemical composition). NASA HQ is expected to wrap up the final two instrument selections in the near term (magnetometer and thermal plasma instrument). Each GDC spacecraft will transmit a low-latency “space weather” data stream that will be of high value to space weather users and operators.

At the upcoming AGU meeting, there are a number of opportunities to engage with GDC, and we welcome discussions with the science community.

A great chance to engage is at the GDC Town Hall (Thursday, 1245-1345 Central, McCormick S103ab).

This is an open meeting focused on providing status updates on plans for the Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) mission, NASA’s next Living With a Star mission. In addition to the status updates, this Town Hall will include some community discussion and Q&A about the current status and future plans for the mission. Of particular interest are 1) avenues by which GDC observations could be leveraged to serve as a strategic hub for other projects; 2) ways to leverage GDC’s measurements to support R2O activities that can support National Space Weather goals; 3) community plans for ground-based observations that could work in concert with GDC to produce unique science.

Other opportunities to engage with GDC include (listed are sessions where GDC material will be presented / discussed, but of course there are a large number of additional sessions about science topics of high relevance to GDC):


  1.  (Sunday Dec 11, 330-5 PM Central, Hilton Chicago Hotel 720 S Michigan Avenue) At the mini-GEM TRACERS session there will be a short GDC presentation describing the mission and how it is complementary to TRACERS
  2.  (Monday Dec 12, 9-1030 AM Central, McCormick Place S401cd) Session SA12A – Leveraging Multi-point and Multi-Source Observations to Advance Frontier ITM Science (oral session)
  3.  (Monday Dec 12, 630-730 PM Central, McCormick Place S102ab) Session TH15A -- The Living With a Star Town Hall
  4.  (Tuesday Dec 13, 1035-1050 AM Central, Hall A, NASA Booth 1937, South / Level 3) Hyperwall presentation “GDC: A Mission to Explore the Heart of Geospace”
  5.  (Tuesday Dec 13, 1345-1445, online) SA24B: online posters for Leveraging Multi-point and Multi-Source Observations to Advance Frontier ITM Science
  6.  (Tuesday Dec 13, 1445-1815, Poster Hall-A) SA25C: posters for Leveraging Multi-point and Multi-Source Observations to Advance Frontier ITM Science – this will include a large number of GDC posters describing instruments, mission, and some science that will be adjacent – great time to have detailed discussions
  7.  (Wednesday Dec 14, 9-1030 AM Central, McCormick Place S401cd) Session SA32A -- Distributed Auroral Measurements and Heterogeneous Data-Driven Physics-Based Simulations for Ionospheric System Science III (oral session)
  8.  (Wednesday Dec 14, 9 AM-1230 PM Central, Poster Hall-A) Session SA32D -- In particular poster SA32D-1693, “Supporting Space Weather with the Geospace Dynamics Constellation” (by K. Garcia-Sage et al.)
  9.  (Thursday Dec 15, 1245-1345 Central, McCormick Place S103ab) Session TH43J – GDC Townhall – one hour of GDC status update and open Q&A

See you at AGU!

On behalf of GDC and the Science Team,

Doug Rowland, GDC Project Scientist                                                       (douglas.e.rowland at nasa.gov<mailto:douglas.e.rowland at nasa.gov>)
Katherine Garcia-Sage, GDC Deputy Project Scientist
Larry Kepko, GDC Deputy Project Scientist
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.ucar.edu/pipermail/cedar_email/attachments/20221205/c3f2e3a8/attachment-0001.htm>