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September 12, 1997 Alaskan research station hosts open house
GAKONA, Alaska (AFNS) -- They came from as far away as Nome, Valdez, Fairbanks, Anchorage and a variety of communities throughout much of Alaska. The event was a recent open house for the largest Department of Defense facility of its kind.
News media representatives and the general public saw a joint U.S. Air Force and Navy facility being developed to learn more about how space weather affects communication, navigation and power grid systems (such as a region-wide electrical production network). Space weather can impact today's satellites which are essential for national defense and daily living in a high-technology-based world.
Located more than 200 miles north-northeast of Anchorage, the site has a large radio frequency transmit antenna and a collection of diagnostic instruments. The antenna is currently being configured to transmit 960,000 watts of radio frequency energy into the ionosphere, an upper portion of the Earth's atmosphere that extends spaceward 50 to more than 300 miles.
The purpose of this antenna is to stimulate, on a very small scale, phenomena similar to those that occur naturally as energy from the sun interacts with the Earth's magnetic field. The stimulated phenomena, which can only be observed with sensitive diagnostic instruments, provide scientists and engineers insight to better understand how this natural phenomena occur and what effects they produce.
The scientific project is called the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program or HAARP. It is jointly managed by the U.S. Air Force Phillips Laboratory, whose Geophysics Directorate is located at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., and two Navy organizations in Washington: the Office of Naval Research and the Naval Research Laboratory.
This was the third open house in as many years. Repeat visitors were able to see the progress being made at the site: the transmit antenna is now about one-fourth finished.
Visually, the antenna is the most striking part of the site. It is comprised of 48 70-foot high towers that support a complex, interconnected structure of wires and beams.
"The towers are spaced at 80-foot intervals in a rectangular grid of eight columns and six rows, "explained John Heckscher, the Phillips Laboratory's HAARP program manager. "At project completion, expected in 2002, there are to be 180 antenna towers in a grid of 15 columns and 12 rows."
Although HAARP is funded through the DOD, the scientific research is coordinated with, and conducted in large part by, educational institutions. Representatives from some of these colleges and universities attended the open house.
Among those participating were Dr. S. I. Akasofu, director
