Project Grant 2426525

This five-year, $106,548 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) supports the operation and maintenance of the Mid-Latitude All-Sky-Imaging Network for Geophysical Observation (MANGO) across the continental United States. The MANGO network, established under a previous NSF program, uses 15 all-sky imagers and 4 Fabry-Perot interferometers to observe the airglow and aurora, measure winds and temperatures in the upper atmosphere, and enable investigations of gravity-wave and storm-time impacts on the mid-latitude thermosphere-ionosphere. The project, a collaboration between SRI, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the University of California, Berkeley, will process and share the collected data, create higher-level data products, and interface with the scientific community to advance understanding of Earth's space weather. Key objectives include determining spatial scales of thermospheric winds, investigating vertical propagation of thermospheric variability, and studying the relative impact of lower atmospheric and magnetospheric forcing on the mid-latitude thermosphere and ionosphere.