Mission Definition
NICE will discover how winds and composition of the upper atmosphere drive the electric fields and chemical reactions that control Earth's ionosphere. The mission will resolve competing theories about the low-latitude ionospheric dynamo, and will explain how large-scale waves from the lower atmosphere can couple to the ionosphere and upper atmosphere. Understanding neutral-ion coupling in Earth's atmosphere has applications for solar and planetary atmospheres including Mars and Jupiter. NICE will be the first mission to simultaneously measure all the key parameters that both characterize and drive the ionosphere. It will remotely measure the neutral wind, temperature, composition, atmospheric and ionospheric density distributions as well as make in situ measurements of the ion motion. NICE uses flight-tested science instruments in a low-inclination orbit where the geometry magnetically links the in situ and remote sensing measurements.
Read more about this topic: Neutral Ion Coupling Explorer
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