# USU Today: AWE Data from the First 3,000 Orbits

**Type:** source
**Status:** Useful
**Confidence:** Medium
**Source Type:** news
**URL:** https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-led-nasa-atmospheric-wave-studying-mission-releases-data-from-first-3000-orbits
**Publisher:** Utah State University
**Raw:** raw/usu-awe-first-3000-orbits/2026-08-11-a95697040b94.txt
**Retrieved:** 2026-08-12
**Updated:** 2026-08-11

## Summary

Utah State University's news service reports the first major AWE data release and documents USU and Space Dynamics Laboratory leadership.

## Useful Claims

- The dataset covers 3,000 orbits and more than five million images.
- USU faculty lead mission science, while USU's Space Dynamics Laboratory built the flight instrument.
- The observations examine how lower-atmosphere gravity waves reach the upper atmosphere.

## Verbatim

> "Following the 3,000th orbit of NASA's AWE (Atmospheric Waves Experiment) aboard the International Space Station, Utah State University and NASA researchers publicly released the mission's first trove of scientific data, crucial to investigating how and why subtle changes in Earth's atmosphere cause disturbances, as well as how these atmospheric disturbances impact technological systems on the ground and in space."
> — Article lede

> "We've released the first 3,000 orbits of data collected by the AWE instrument in space and transmitted back to Earth," said USU Physics Professor Ludger Scherliess, principal investigator for the mission. "This is a view of atmospheric gravity waves never captured before."
> — PI quote

> "Available online , the data release contains more than 5 million individual images of nighttime airglow and atmospheric gravity wave observations collected by the instrument's four cameras, as well as derived temperature and airglow intensity swaths of the ambient air and the waves."
> — Data-release paragraph

> "AWE is led by Utah State University in Logan, Utah, and it is managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Utah State University's Space Dynamics Laboratory built the AWE instrument and provides the mission operations center."
> — Mission credits

## Reliability Notes

This official university source is strong for USU participation but is promotional reporting rather than an independent assessment of scientific importance.

## Related Pages

- [Atmospheric Waves Experiment](atmospheric-waves-experiment.md) · https://greatutah.work/pages/atmospheric-waves-experiment.md