Results of Processing GOLD Data in Near-Real-Time for Thermosphere-Ionosphere Applications

Abstract:

NASA’s first commercially hosted payload, the Global Scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission, images the Earth disk in Ultraviolet wavelengths from geostationary orbit. Derived Level 2 products include maps of thermospheric temperature at ~160 km (TDISK) and column integrated Oxygen to Nitrogen ratio (ON2). Near-real-time GOLD observations would be valuable inputs that could reduce uncertainties in specification of the current and future state of the Thermosphere-Ionosphere system, benefitting applications such as satellite drag and ionosphere specification models. In this study, we analyze the TDISK and ON2 products produced by a prototype processing pipeline that achieves low latency by making assumptions about the satellite position and pointing. We find that these products agree well with a definitive version produced without the low latency assumptions. We propose requirements that would permit this type of near-real-time GOLD data to be useful in operations. We conclude that these prototype data, with a latency of 20-30 minutes, appear to be sufficient to meet the operational requirements.