TIMED Contributions to the NASA Sun-Solar System Connections Great Observatory

TIMED, the terrestrial anchor of NASA's Sun-Solar System Great Observatory, provides comprehensive global measurements of atmospheric properties required for a quantitative understanding the physical, dynamic, energetic and thermal structure of Earth's mesosphere, thermosphere, and ionosphere. This region, located between 60 and 400 km altitude, is the interface between interplanetary processes above and the stratosphere and lower atmosphere below. Thus it plays a uniquely important role in the scientific study of Sun-Solar System connections and in bridging the programmatic gap between space physics and Earth science. The current SSSC Great Observatory comprises a fleet of widely deployed solar, heliospheric, geospace and planetary spacecraft working together to help understand solar activity and its interaction with planetary systems. It is an evolving set as new spacecraft are added and old spacecraft are removed. To address the fundamental physical processes of the space environment and to understand the SSSC system- wide behavior requires multiple observation posts, rapid access to data, development and application of models, theory, and simulations. We will discuss new scientific insights and discoveries from the TIMED mission to illustrate the manifestations of complex coupling processes and to demonstrate the value of the Great Observatory concept. The topics include: (1) observations of the spatial and temporal extent of severe equatorial ionospheric plasma depletions which occur during superstorms using observations of bubbles from TIMED/GUVI with the DMSP and ROCSAT-1 satellites. (2) Mid-latitude aurora, and (3) global thermospheric/ionospheric coupling and (4) the variability of geospace considering the flow of energy from the sun through to its deposition in the upper atmosphere during large geomagnetic storms.