Update on the Improvement of the DMSP SSIES-3 Database to Level-2 Quality

Abstract:

Starting with the launch of DMSP-F16 in 2003 there have been four DMSP spacecraft carrying the upgraded SSIES-3 plasma instrument package. Three of these spacecraft (F16-F18) are still operational and should continue operations through the mid-2020s. Together they have already produced over 50 satellite-years of ionospheric data that have been widely used throughout the space science and space weather communities. However, most of the publicly available data from the SSIES-3 instruments have not been properly reduced nor vetted for bad or problematic data. With funding from NASA we have been developing a set of improved data reduction codes and an improved set of quality flags for each point for most of the data parameters. At the AGU 2019 meeting we presented the first phase where we had reprocessed the solar maximum 2012-2014 period of data for F16-F18 and placed them in NASA's SPDR data center and NSF's Madrigal data center. In this update we will report on further improvements to the data reduction techniques of the retarding potential analyzer (RPA) parameters (ram ion flow velocity, ion temperature, and fractional amounts of O+, H+, and He+) and an improved algorithm for determining the quality flags for the ion drift meter (IDM) parameters (the horizontal and vertical ion flow velocities). We have also improved the data reduction procedure for calculating the ion density from the scintillation meter to remove spurious measurements and periods where the wrong range was used for the density calculations. Our current work is focused on improving the data reduction during solar minimum periods. The topside ionosphere where the DMSP orbit has a lower ion density during solar minimum and this lower density degrades the operations of the SSIES-3 instruments and the quality of the parameters produced from these data. Thus the data reduction during solar minimum periods is more difficult and the determination of the data quality flags is more involved. We will present results from our work on data from both the historic solar minimum (2005-2011) and the current solar minimum. Once we have developed enough confidence in our solar minimum data reduction procedures, we plan to begin uploading current data to the SPDR and Madrigal data centers within a week after they are taken.