What is the AIM Satellite and How Will it Perform Its Mission?

The upper atmosphere of earth is the mesosphere. Since the first ones were seen in 1885 shinning electric blue clouds have appeared there. Yet the mesosphere is an arid, frigid zone naturally devoid of water particles and dust particles, both of which are necessary for the formation of clouds. NASA aims to discover the source of the mystery clouds in the mesosphere.

As is explained on the official AIM Web site http://aim.hamptonu.edu/, AIM stands for Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere. The science of physics and chemistry relevant to the upper atmosphere is called aeronomy. AIM is on a two year mission to study the relatively new and as yet mysterious phenomenon Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs) that form icy layers at the edge of space, 83 kilometers, or 50 miles, above Earth's surface.

PMCs are active during Polar spring and summer at both hemispheres. Now, for two years, which is two PMC active cycles, AIM will collect data relevant to the physics and chemistry of PMCs and measure the conditions of the mesospheric atmosphere as well as the microphysical properties of the PMCs. The objective is to resolve some of the mysteries of how and why PMCs form and what relevance they may or may not have to global warming changes now impacting Earth and changing the face of the planet.

AIM was launched on April 25 in order to be in place in Earth orbit in time for the northern PMC active season. The 55 inch tall, 43 inch wide, 430 pound satellite was launched attached to a Pegasus XL rocket. The Pegasus rides to 39,000 feet altitude secured to a modified L-1011 jet called "Stargazer". Pegasus is released at 39,000 for the 10-minute flight into space where AIM is released into Earth orbit. AIM successfully made this three-stage journey with the L-1011 and Pegasus on April 25, 2007 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Santa Barbara County in southern California.

AIM represents the meeting of historic science and an historic partnership. The AIM project was developed by NASA and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Orbital Science Corporation and Hampton University, which is located in Hampton, Virginia. The historic science is the attempt to solve a modern mesospheric mystery and the historic partnership is NASA's collaboration with Hampton University, which is "the first Historically Black College and University to have total mission responsibility for a NASA satellite mission," to quote Hampton University President Dr. William R. Harvey.

The importance of the AIM mission is that scientists have come to believe that PMCs may indicate the effect on the global atmosphere of present-day global climate and ecosystem change, which is now measurable on the planet. PMCs, which are also call "noctilucent clouds" (night shinning), originate at the poles and are visible at night as brightly lit streamers that extend farther from the poles and intensify every year. At first the northern PMCs could only be seen from places like Russia and Scandinavia, but now they are visible as far south as 40 degrees North, which is around Colorado, Utah and Virginia.

Along with other things, AIM will measure and collect samples of water and gasses, like methane, and dust, including cosmic dust, to attempt to ascertain the nature of this new post-industrial revolution atmospheric phenomenon.