Project Overview

Short Project Description (technical stuff) : An array of latitudinally spaced magnetometers will be deployed at low latitudes along the coast of Chile. The array will include a total of 11 sites extending from the northern coast of Chile to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The array will provide the scientific community with much needed low latitude data from the South American continent by bridging the gap between existing chains of stations. The data are used to study the processes by which energy from the solar wind is transferred to the inner magnetosphere and generates pulsations and transient variations on the ground at low latitudes.

Ultimately, this research will be used by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL, my work) to predict what conditions cause satellite communication to go down. Any disruption or degradation of the signal effects ground troops and pilots because they lose valuable information from the satellites, including GPS, intelligence, and weather. My branch is trying to get to the point where we can predict space weather to the degree we can predict atmospheric weather.

The project is a collaborative effort between UCLA, AFRL, and a number of Chilean universities.