Atmospheric waves experiment mission overview

NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) mission is a Heliophysics Small Explorers Mission of Opportunity designed to investigate how terrestrial weather affects space weather, via small-scale atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs) produced in Earth’s atmosphere. Following its launch to the International Space Station (ISS) in November 2023, AWE began a 2-year mission to explore the global distribution of AGWs, study the processes controlling their transport throughout the upper atmosphere, and estimate their impacts on the ionosphere – thermosphere – mesosphere (ITM) system. This paper will present an overview of the AWE mission, including science objectives, measurement technique, instrument design and development, pre-launch performance and environmental testing, data processing, and a brief look at on-orbit science results.