Dynamical Properties of Shuttle Plumes in the Lower Thermosphere

Details Dynamical Properties of Shuttle Plumes in the Lower Thermosphere Dynamical Properties of Shuttle Plumes in the Lower Thermosphere

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufmsa32a..06m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #SA32A-06

Physics

[0310] Atmospheric Composition And Structure / Airglow And Aurora, [3360] Atmospheric Processes / Remote Sensing, [3369] Atmospheric Processes / Thermospheric Dynamics, [3389] Atmospheric Processes / Tides And Planetary Waves

Scientific paper

Prior to orbital injection, Space Shuttles fly nearly horizontally in the lower thermosphere for 1000 km. During the main engine burn, some 300 metric tons of water vapor are deposited between 100 and 115 km. Photodisssociation of water results in large plumes of atomic hydrogen that can expand rapidly and extend for thousands of kilometers. From 2002 to 2007, the Global Ultraviolet Imager (GUVI) on NASA’s Thermosphere Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) satellite imaged many of these hydrogen plumes while viewing in the nadir. We compare the spreading of the hydrogen plume with a two-dimensional model that includes photodissociation and molecular diffusion. Molecular diffusion appears to be sufficient to account for the expansion, although contributions from turbulent mixing cannot be excluded. We also compare the bulk motion of the observed plumes with wind climatologies derived from satellite observations. The plumes sometimes move much faster than predictions of wind climatologies, but certain dynamical processes, such as the two-day wave, can account for at least some of the high speed observations. We will present an overview of the observations and the derived time-dependent dynamical characteristics of the hydrogen plumes.

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