The Canadian Space Agency has announced a new research opportunity for its Sun-Earth System Science Program for Ionospheric Radio Wave Propagation Modelling.
The announcement of opportunity (AO) deadline is March 8, 2021 and will result with up two contracts awarded worth $425K each. The contract period is approximately 30 months.
Background
The following is the project background as outlined in the AO.
The mandate of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is to promote the peaceful use and development of space, to advance the knowledge of space through science and to ensure that space science and technology provide social and economic benefits for Canadians. As part of this mandate, the CSA has funded Canadian Universities to perform continuous monitoring of the ionosphere above Canada using ground-based instruments. Those measurements, often combined with satellite observations, help better understand the fundamental processes taking place in that region of geospace, which affect radio propagation, including radar and GNSS signal distortion, and produce ground induced currents which may impact pipelines and electric power lines.
Through data analysis, simulation and modeling, Canadian scientists can better understand the ionosphere and predict its behavior. The CSA has funded a number of such studies whose aim was to develop the science required to understand the physics at play in the ionosphere and how the ionosphere responds to solar input (space weather), affecting our technology. Canada’s Department of National Defence has a plan to use polar over-the-horizon radar (POTHR) for long-range surveillance of the polar cap; however, the highly dynamic nature and complex structure of the ionosphere at high-latitudes impedes the application of such technology. Recent observations suggest that the characterization of the E-region ionosphere, sporadic-E- layer formation, and ionospheric dynamics is critical for the mitigation of space weather effects on POTHR. As space weather processes tied to sporadic-E are poorly understood and significantly under-sampled this necessitates the need to simulate and study the detrimental impacts of Sporadic-E on the propagation of POTHR signals through the ionosphere.