NASA selects DAPHNE mission to study space weather, atmospheric interaction

NASA said in a news release it has selected a new mission concept aimed at improving scientists’ understanding of how Earth’s atmosphere interacts with space weather, a step the agency says could lead to better forecasts for disruptions affecting GPS systems, satellites in low Earth orbit and astronauts in space.

The mission, called DAPHNE — short for Dynamic Atmosphere-Ionosphere Explorer — will advance into Phase B of development, which includes planning and design for flight and mission operations, NASA said. The mission will deploy a pair of identical twin satellites to study how changes in Earth’s lower atmosphere influence conditions in the upper atmosphere, where space weather effects occur.

“NASA is advancing the United States’ leadership as a space weather-ready nation, and by providing new insights into Earth’s atmosphere we can better predict and prepare for impacts in our daily lives on Earth and in space,” Nicky Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a NASA news release. Fox said DAPHNE will help mission planners better predict and mitigate space weather effects as NASA prepares for future missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

NASA said DAPHNE will provide coordinated, multi-point measurements of neutral winds, temperature and atmospheric composition in the thermosphere. The thermosphere and ionosphere form the region where Earth’s neutral atmosphere transitions into the ionized plasma of space. According to the agency, that region is continuously shaped by solar activity as well as energy from both the lower atmosphere and near-Earth space.

The mission is led by Aimee Merkel of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder. NASA said data collected by DAPHNE will help scientists incorporate lower-atmospheric energy inputs into improved space weather forecasting models.

DAPHNE was proposed in response to NASA’s DYNAMIC — Dynamical Neutral Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling — announcement of opportunity. Funding and management oversight will be provided through the Solar Terrestrial Probes program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, according to the agency.

NASA said the mission will undergo a confirmation review in 2027 to assess its technical progress and available funding. If approved, total mission costs — excluding launch expenses — will be capped at $250 million in fiscal year 2023 dollars, with launch scheduled no earlier than 2029.