Grant helps bring new research to University of Alaska Fairbanks’ HAARP facility

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - When most people turn their eyes on the aurora, they see a dazzling ribbon of light dancing across the sky and a quintessential sign of the Alaska experience. When Robert McCoy, director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, sees auroras, he sees potential.

McCoy is a principal investigator in a new project aimed at understanding more about what goes on up there — there being the ionosphere. It’s called the Subauroral Geophysical Observatory for Space Physics and Radio Science, and it will be housed at the existing High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program site in Gakona.

A five-year, $9.3 million grant from the National Science Foundation has made the new research possible, according to a press release from the Geophysical Institute.

The HAARP facility, which was built in the 1990s, was transferred from the United States Air Force to UAF in 2015. It’s used for all manner of research into the earth’s upper atmosphere, specifically the ionosphere.

“There’s a whole lot of research you can do,” McCoy said.

The array at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program facility in Gakona, Alaska.(Photo courtesy University of Alaska)

In the new observatory project, scientists from the National Science Foundation will specifically focus on investigating how the sun affects the earth’s ionosphere and magnetosphere, according to the release.

As summer nears, the sun will become more active over Alaska, McCoy said. Particles being released from the sun will affect both the ionosphere and the magnetosphere, and that’s what scientists will study.

The observatory will not require any construction. Rather, it represents new research taking place at the existing facility. The university does hope to add additional instruments to the HAARP site over time, the release notes.

The work will have real-world implications, McCoy said, since disturbances in the ionosphere can disrupt communications like radio signals, satellites and global positioning systems, as well as cause power outages.

The accuracy of GPS navigation can go down when there are disturbances in the ionosphere, McCoy said, and if the disturbances are significant enough, GPS can stop working entirely.

The instruments at the HAARP facility will allow scientists to conduct controlled experiments in the ionosphere, even reaching up into the magnetosphere, McCoy said, so as to better understand these regions of the atmosphere and how they are disturbed.

The $9.3 million grant will fund observatory operations, financial support for visiting scientists to conduct their experiments, education and community outreach. According to the press release, the research is initially expected to focus on studying various types of aurora and other “occurrences” in the ionosphere.

A high-frequency transmitter, McCoy described the HAARP facility as “the most powerful HAM radio in the world.”

Its 180 antennas are able to send radio waves into the ionosphere to interact with free electrons and ions. This interaction mimics the same interactions that happen naturally but which are harder to observe.

There are other ways to study the ionosphere, McCoy said, by launching rockets into it or flying satellites through it.

“But with HAARP, we kind of reach out and touch it with radio waves,” he said.

Researchers will take a reading of a section of the sky above the HAARP, McCoy said. Then, they will “excite” that section of the ionosphere using the HAARP instruments, and study the results.

McCoy said the facility welcomes scientists from a wide range of military and other organizations to conduct research, or “campaigns.” Incoming scientists pay the Geophysical Institute for their time and use of the site’s instruments.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct a typo in a quotation.