Goals

Table of Contents

Research Objectives

Objectives 1–5 are pursued under the NASA award described in About; objectives 6–7 under the ONR award.

  1. Developing a 3D HF Ray-Tracing Toolkit: Implement a 3D HF ray-tracing engine natively in Python, based on the Jones & Stephenson ray-tracing formulation, enabling accurate modeling of HF propagation through complex ionospheric conditions and understudied off-great-circle paths such as side-scatter.
  2. Validating Ionospheric Models with Empirical Data: Use observational HamSCI data with 3D ray-tracing to validate ionospheric models, and provide feedback to model developers, particularly on the bottomside ionosphere.
  3. Simulating HF Response to Critical Ionospheric Phenomena: Focus on Equatorial Plasma Bubbles (EPBs) and quantify their effects on HF communication reliability, bridging research-to-operations (R2O) gaps in predicting space-weather-induced HF disruptions.
  4. Enhancing Accessibility and Usability: Provide comprehensive documentation and tutorials to enable broad adoption by the public.

  5. Fostering Public Engagement: Host bi-weekly online seminars for citizen scientists to train users, help them set up their own research problems, and gather real-world feedback.

  6. Navy Operational Model Validation: Apply the same raytracing-against-HamSCI methodology used for Objective 2 to validate Navy ionospheric models such as NIMO, using HamSCI HF spot data archived in the Madrigal database.
  7. Equatorial Spread F (ESF) Diagnostic Ray Tracing: Use 3D raytracing through parametric ionospheric scenes — background climatological models perturbed with tilts, uplifts, and density gradients — to synthesize ionogram-like signatures, compared against directional ionograms, to help identify the minimal conditions that trigger ESF onset.

NASA Work Plan

Adapted from the funded NASA proposal’s work plan (subject to change as the project proceeds). Two things have changed since the proposal was written:

  • Official period of performance: February 2026 – January 2029, a uniform 5-month shift from the proposal’s nominal September 2025 – August 2028. The dates below reflect this official schedule. In practice, active work did not begin until mid-May 2026 (a further ~3-month slip) because of the PI’s leave — but the official end date, January 2029, has not changed. That means the remaining milestones below represent the plan of record, not a re-planned schedule compressed to fit the shorter practical working time; they will be revised here as the team re-prioritizes to still target the January 2029 end date.
  • Approach to Objective 1: some milestones still describe the proposal’s original PyLap/PHaRLAP-extension approach; the toolkit is now implemented natively in Python instead (see About).
Date Milestone
February 2026 Develop open-source core computational engine.
April 2026 Start bi-weekly seminars and collect feedback from citizen scientists.
May 2026 Process and analyze HamSCI data for integration.
September 2026 Prepare ionospheric model outputs to meet ray-tracing requirements for model validation and for generating anomalous HF propagation.
January 2027 Integrate the new core engine with the existing 2D PyLap and test.
April 2027 Develop 3D functionality and conduct initial testing.
July 2027 Integrate the new core engine with 3D functionality and conduct comprehensive testing.
August 2027 Integrate ionospheric model outputs into 3D ray-tracing.
September 2027 Study understudied off-great-circle propagation and document findings.
November 2027 Study EPBs’ effect on anomalous HF propagation and refine the toolkit.
February 2028 Begin toolkit packaging and testing.
July 2028 Complete toolkit packaging and finalize tests.
August 2028 Validate ionospheric models against HamSCI data.
September 2028 Create tutorial based on feedback from bi-weekly seminars.
November 2028 Finalize examples and comprehensive documentation for the toolkit.
January 2029 Complete project report and disseminate findings — official award end date.

ONR Work Plan

Objectives 6 and 7 above run under a separate three-year ONR award (see About), whose period of performance is December 1, 2025 – November 30, 2028 — a 3-month delay from the proposal’s nominal three-year span starting September 2025. In practice, active work was further interrupted by the PI’s leave from mid-February to mid-May 2026 — but the official end date, November 30, 2028, has not changed. The table below represents the plan of record (the ray-tracing-related portion of the ONR work plan, shifted by the original 3-month delay), not a schedule re-planned to compress around the leave.

Activity Year 1 (Dec 2025 – Nov 2026) Year 2 (Dec 2026 – Nov 2027) Year 3 (Dec 2027 – Nov 2028)
Develop validation pipeline (Objective 6) Pipeline architecture design Intermediate pipeline demonstration Final pipeline integration & open-source release
Large-scale Navy model validation (Objective 6) — — Full-scale validation across models/frequencies
Perform raytracing case studies (Objective 7) Preliminary raytracing experiments Systematic case studies, parameterized ionospheres Finalize case studies