These awards were made on the basis of proposals submitted in response to NASA Research Announcement NRA-96-OSS-09. Proposals describing 72 investigations were reviewed in the competition for FY 1997 funding from the ITM SR&T program. Fourteen of these were rated Excellent or Excellent/Very Good in a peer review of their scientific merit, 32 were rated Very Good or Very Good/Good, and the remainder were rated Good or less. The funding available for the support of new programs in FY 1997 allowed the selection of 19 of these proposals for funding; the selected proposals included most of the Excellent proposals and 6 of the highest priority Very Good proposals.

The assignment of ratings was based on requirements set out in the NRA and followed carefully the NASA definitions of Excellent, Very Good, Good, and Poor which were provided to proposers. Specifically, in order for a proposal to be have been rated Very Good or Excellent it had to have (1) presented a clear scientific question to be answered, (2) outlined an appropriate and feasible method of approaching this question and (3) provided confidence that if the proposed effort were carried out, then definitive progress in understanding the phenomenon in question would likely result. A proposal was classified as Excellent if and only if, having met these necessary but not sufficient conditions, it also targeted a compelling question whose timely solution was important to advancement of the field.

The next opportunity to propose for ITM SR&T funding will be in response to the 1997 Sun-Earth Connection SR&T NRA, which we expect to release on or about May 1, 1997.

A full list of the ITM SR&T investigations which are being supported in FY 1997, including the new starts, follows.

Supporting Research and Technology Program in Ionospheric, Thermospheric, and Mesospheric Physics Fiscal Year 1997

Ajello/JPL: High resolution, temperature dependent photoabsorption cross section measurements of O2 and N2 important to the Earth's atmosphere

Borovsky/Los Alamos: Coordinated observations of the aurora and the auroral magnetosphere

Burns/Michigan: Studies of the thermospheric response to geomagnetic storms during solar minimum conditions*

Burrage/Michigan: Dynamical variations in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere: Seasonal and interannual variation*

Coley/UTD: Adaptive identification and characterization of polar ionization patches

Copeland/SRI: Collisional processes important in the O2 ultraviolet airglow

Croskey/Penn State: Development of naonotechnology sensors for space applications: An instrumented falling sphere for the measurement of density, temperature, and winds in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere

Crowley/APL: A new framework for the study of high latitude lower-thermospheric structure caused by thermosphere-ionosphere coupling*

Dunkerton/NorthWest Research: Decadal variability and temperature trends in the middle atmosphere from historical rocketsonde data*

Earle/UTDallas: Development and demonstration of a robust micro-electromechanical pressure transducer for low altitude satellite anemometer applications

Eccles/SEC: The electrodynamics of the E and F region dynamos in the transition altitudes of the equatorial ionosphere

Fejer/Utah: Satellite studies of storm time mid- and low-latitude ionospheric electrodynamics

Forbes/Colorado: Natural oscillations of the thermosphere-ionosphere system

Fox/Wright State: Model studies of excited states of N2 and N2+ in the thermosphere/ionosphere*

Ganguli, G/NRL: Origin of low frequency waves and plasma energization in the ionosphere*

Ganguli, S/SAIC: Coupling between field-aligned transport and convection in the auroral and polar cap ionosphere

Gary/APL: Low latitude current systems determined from satellite magnetic field observations

Goldberg/GSFC: Mesospheric response to impacting relativistic electrons

Goldman/Colorado: Nonlinear wave and particle heating in the auroral ionosphere

Heelis/UTD: The spatial distribution of plasma and field structures at high latitudes

Herrero/GSFC: The vertical neutral wind in the lower-latitude thermosphere

Hickey/UAH: Wave driven exothermic heating in the mesopause region

Hoffman/GSFC: Magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling in the electrodynamics of substorms

Huo/Ames: Production of atomic nitrogen in the thermosphere by electron - N2 collisions

Inan/Stanford: Heating, ionization and red sprites produced in the lower thermosphere by quasi electrostatic thundercloud fields

Killeen/Michigan: Theoretical studies and satellite data analysis of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere*

Kletzing/New Hampshire: Kinetic Alfven wave electron acceleration on auroral field lines

Kozyra/Michigan: Studies of inner magnetospheric processes and their coupling to the underlying ionosphere and atmosphere

LaBelle/Dartmouth: Investigation of equatorial spread-F rocket data

Lieberman/Michigan: Global observation of planetary-scale waves in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere from the High Resolution Doppler Imager (HRDI) and the Wind Imaging Interferometer (WINDII)

Lotko/Dartmouth: Dispersive Alfven dynamics of the magnetosphere-ionosphere interaction*

Lumpe/CPI: A study of thermospheric O2 densities during the decline of the current solar cycle*

Lynch/New Hampshire: Wave acceleration of auroral ions: AMICIST data set

Lysak/Minnesota: A three-dimensional, time-dependent model of the interaction of Alfven waves with the ionosphere*

Mayr/GSFC: Modeling of waves, tides, and equatorial oscillations in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere

Mendillo/BU: Use of NASA's Global Positioning System (GPS) Monitoring Network for studies of ionospheric structure and variability

Menietti/Iowa: Comprehensive investigation of 2 fp radio emissions observed by DE 1 in the dayside and nightside auroral regions

Newell/APL: Pressure profiles of the magnetosphere as reflected in ionospheric observations

Oppenheim/Colorado: Simulation and theory of the Farley-Buneman instability in the E-region ionosphere*

Parish/UCLA: Simulations of the effects of planetary wave oscillations on the thermosphere and ionosphere using a Coupled Thermosphere Ionosphere Model (CTIM)

Pfaff/Goddard: Analysis of electric field, current density, and plasma instability data gathered in the equatorial electrojet during the NASA/Brazil rocket campaign, 1994, and electric field data gathered during the Atmospheric Response in Auroras (ARIA) experiment 1995

Retterer/Phillips Lab: Spikelets and lower hybrid collapse

Richards/Alabama: Quantification of neutral wind variability in the upper thermosphere

Richmond/NCAR: Modeling of ionospheric and atmospheric electric fields and currents*

Robertson/Colorado: Charged particulates in the polar mesosphere/Instrument development

Roussel-Dupre/Los Alamos: High altitude discharges and gamma-ray flashes as a manifestation of runaway air breakdown

Rowland/NRL: Ionospheric heating and acceleration by lightning bursts*

Seyler/Cornell: Electron and ion acceleration by Alfven wave breakup*

Singh/Alabama: Three-dimensional numerical simulation of nonlinear lower hybrid wave propagation

Slanger/SRI: Atmospherically-related studies of O(1D) and O2(b1 1S+g)

Spence/BU: Separating spatial and temporal variations of the aurora using two nearly colocated satellites*

Thorne/UCLA: Electron precipitation from the inner magnetosphere and its effect on the middle atmosphere*

Walterscheid/Aerospace: Gravity wave mean-state interactions in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere

Wing/APL: Modeling the entry of solar wind particles into the dayside ionosphere*

Winglee/Washington: Magnetosheath/ionospheric coupling in the cusp/cleft region

Yee/APL: Global atomic oxygen distribution in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (80-105 km)

Zipf/Pittsburgh: The PIMS experiment: A study of the primary and secondary photoionization processes that create the ionosphere and support its odd-nitrogen chemistry*

*Programs started or renewed in FY 1997