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LAUNCH DETAILS

days
since AIM launched.

Launch Date: 25 April 2007
Location: Vandenberg AFB, California, USA
Launch Vehicle: Pegasus
Orbit: Sun-synchronus
Inclination: 97.8 degrees
Period: 96 min, 32 sec

After initial spacecraft stabilization, the spacecraft and instruments underwent extensive commissioning activities to ensure proper operation.

FEATURED DATA

CIPS observed its first cloud of the NH 2011 season on 24 May, just north of the Queen Elizabeth Islands. Similar to other seasons, this was four days after the SOFIE first detection because of the lower sensitivity of CIPS. Clouds have increased in number and intensity each day since then. The image here is a preliminary "daily daisy" from 30 May, showing widespread clouds over the polar region. more>

Featured Data Archive

AIM DATA SETS

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MISSION STATUS

The AIM spacecraft continues to operate well with limited periods of bitlock. Over the past few
months we performed CIPS Northern Hemisphere Fast Cadence Flat Field calibration imaging. We also updated the on-board CIPS autonomy sequences to provide better performance as the orbit slowly decays.
more >

INSTRUMENTS

SOFIE

CIPS

CDE

Final Mass, Power, & Data Rates for SOFIE, CIPS, CDE, BUS, and their totals.

Spaceweather's NLC Gallery

Summer 2011 Photo Gallery

THE MISSION

The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite mission is exploring Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs), also called noctilucent clouds, to find out why they form and why they are changing.

The AIM mission has been extended by NASA through the end of FY12. During this time the instruments will monitor noctilucent clouds to better understand their variability and possible connection to climate change. Individual instrument data collection status, as well as spacecraft and instrument health, will be monitored throughout the life of the mission and reported periodically on this website.

The primary goal of the AIM mission is to help scientists understand whether the clouds' ephemeral nature, and their variation over time, is related to Earth's changing climate - and to investigate why they form in the first place. By measuring the thermal, chemical and other properties of the environment in which the mysterious clouds form, the AIM mission will provide researchers with a foundation for the study of long-term variations in the mesosphere and its relationship to global climate change. In addition to measuring environmental conditions, the AIM mission will collect data on cloud abundance, how the clouds are distributed, and the size of particles within them.

NEWS & PRESS

07.20.2011
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Noctilucent Clouds Over Edmonton

07.06.2011
NASA
Noctilucent Cloud Season Begins

When noctilucent clouds (NLCs) first appeared in the 19th century, they were a high-latitude phenomenon. You had to travel toward the poles to see their electric-blue glow. Not anymore. Just this past weekend, these beautiful, "night-shining" clouds spilled over the Canadian border into the lower United States as far south as Denver, Colorado.

In recent years, a NASA spacecraft called AIM (Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere) has spotted the clouds appearing ever lower in latitudes, but just why is not yet known. AIM studies the clouds in order to better understand our lower atmosphere and how it is connected to weather and climate.

The clouds are seasonal, appearing most often in late spring and summer. In the northern hemisphere, the best time to search for these beauties would be between mid-May and the end of August.

07.01.2011
WHRO
Discovery Now Podcast on NLCs

Press Release Archive