Lightning spectrometer for ionospheric disturbances

Lightning acts as an electric dipole antenna emitting radio waves that affect the ionosphere. This property is the basis for a new low-cost ground/satellite observation capability to measure dispersion and total electron content in the ionosphere. These properties are important to RF propagation in general and affect the accuracy of GPS. The signal path is modeled by locating the lightning using time of flight to both the spacecraft and inexpensive ground stations. This specialized monitoring system involves very high speed capture and Fourier transform at which point the data is efficiently buffered and time stamped for convenient downlink. This will allow for a client to download and analyze data to determine key ionospheric parameters or for the proposed satellite-based monitoring system to perform detailed trending. The eventual goal of this project is to provide a nano-satellite package for low earth orbit.