The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a University of Alaska Fairbanks program which researches the ionosphere – the highest, ionized part of Earth's atmosphere. The most prominent instrument at HAARP is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high-power radio frequency transmitter facility operating in the high frequency (HF) band. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere. Other instruments, such as a VHF and a UHF radar, a fluxgate magnetometer, a digisonde (an ionospheric sounding device), and an induction magnetometer, are used to study the physical processes that occur in the excited region. Work on the HAARP facility began in 1993. Initially HAARP was jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It was designed and built by BAE Advanced Technologies. Its original purpose was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. Since 2015 it has been operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The current working IRI was completed in 2007; its prime contractor was BAE Systems Advanced Technologies. As of 2008, HAARP had incurred around $250 million in tax-funded construction and operating costs. In May 2014, it was announced that the HAARP program would be permanently shut down later in the year. After discussions between the parties, ownership of the facility was transferred to the University of Alaska Fairbanks in August 2015.
HAARP is a target of conspiracy theorists, who claim that it is capable of weather manipulation and mind control. Scientists and other critics point out that these claims fall well outside the abilities of the facility, and often outside the scope of current natural science.
History
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program began in 1990. Ted Stevens, Republican U.S. senator from Alaska, helped win approval for the facility, and construction began in 1993.
In early May 2013, HAARP was temporarily shut down, awaiting a change between contractors to operate the facility. In July 2013, HAARP program manager James Keeney said, "Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is expected on site as a client to finish up some research in fall 2013 and winter 2014." The temporary shutdown was described as being due to "a contractor regime change." Ahtna, Incorporated, the Alaska Native corporation serving the region of Alaska where the HAARP site is located, was reportedly in talks to take over the facility administration contract from Marsh Creek, LLC.
In May 2014, the Air Force announced that the HAARP program would be shut down later in 2014. While experiments ended in the summer of 2014, the complete shutdown and dismantling of the facility was postponed until at least May 2015. In mid-August 2015 control of the facility and its equipment was turned over to the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which is making the facilities available for researchers on a pay-per-use basis.
Project overview HAARP began operating in 1999 as a 6 × 8 (= 48) antenna array at 0.96 MW, expanding in 2007 to a 12 × 15 (=180) array of 180 antennas with 360 radio transmitters at 9.6 MW. It covers 14 ha near Gakona, about 250 km northeast of Anchorage. Its beam direction is anywhere within 30° of zenith. The HAARP project directs a 3.6 MW signal, in the 2.8–10 MHz region of the HF band, into the ionosphere. The signal may be pulsed or continuous. Effects of the transmission and any recovery period can be examined using associated instrumentation, including VHF and UHF radars, HF receivers, and optical cameras. According to the HAARP team, this will advance the study of basic natural processes that occur in the ionosphere under the natural but much stronger influence of solar interaction. HAARP also enables studies of how the natural ionosphere affects radio signals.
The insights gleaned at HAARP will enable scientists to develop methods to mitigate these effects to improve the reliability or performance of communication and navigation systems which would have a wide range of both civilian and military uses, such as an increased accuracy of GPS navigation and advances in underwater and underground research and applications. This may lead, among other things, to improved methods for submarine communication or an ability to remotely sense and map the mineral content of the terrestrial subsurface, and perhaps underground complexes, of regions or countries. The current facility lacks range to be used in regions like the oil-rich Middle East, according to one of the researchers involved, but the technology could be put on a mobile platform.
The project was originally funded by the Office of Naval Research and jointly managed by the ONR and Air Force Research Laboratory, with principal involvement of the University of Alaska Fairbanks; other US universities and educational institutions involved in the development of the project and its instruments include Stanford University, Penn State University (ARL), Boston College, UCLA, Clemson University, Dartmouth College, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, College Park, University of Massachusetts Amherst, MIT, Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Virginia Tech and the University of Tulsa. The project's specifications were developed by the universities, who continued to play a major role in the design of future research efforts.
According to HAARP's original management, the project strove for openness, and all activities were logged and publicly available, a practice which continues under the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Scientists without security clearances, even foreign nationals, were routinely allowed on site, which also continues today. HAARP hosts an open house annually, during which time any civilian can tour the entire facility. In addition, scientific results obtained using HAARP are routinely published in major research journals (such as Geophysical Research Letters and Journal of Geophysical Research), written both by university scientists (American and foreign) and by U.S. Department of Defense research lab scientists.
Research HAARP's main goal is basic science research in the uppermost portion of the atmosphere, termed the ionosphere. Essentially a transition between the atmosphere and the magnetosphere, the ionosphere is where the atmosphere is thin enough that the Sun's X-rays and UV rays can reach it, but thick enough that there are enough molecules present to absorb those rays. Consequently, the ionosphere consists of a rapid increase in density of free electrons, beginning at 70 km, reaching a peak at ~300 km, and then falling off again as the atmosphere disappears entirely by ~1,000 km. Various aspects of HAARP can study all of the main layers of the ionosphere.
The profile of the ionosphere is highly variable, changing constantly on timescales of minutes, hours, days, seasons, and years. This profile becomes even more complex near Earth's magnetic poles, where the nearly vertical alignment and intensity of Earth's magnetic field can cause physical effects like the aurora.
The ionosphere is traditionally very difficult to measure. Balloons cannot reach it because the air is too thin, but satellites cannot orbit there because the air is too thick. Hence, most experiments on the ionosphere give only small pieces of information. HAARP approaches the study of the ionosphere by following in the footsteps of an ionospheric heater called EISCAT near Tromsø, Norway. There, scientists pioneered exploration of the ionosphere by perturbing it with radio waves in the 2–10 MHz range, and studying how the ionosphere reacts. HAARP performs the same functions but with more power and a more flexible and agile HF beam.
Some of the main capabilities of HAARP include: Generating very low frequency (VLF) radio waves by modulated heating of the auroral electrojet, useful because generating VLF waves ordinarily requires gigantic antennas Generating artificial airglow, which is typically subvisual but routinely detectable. Under certain geophysical conditions and transmitter configurations, it can be bright enough to observe with the unaided eye. Generating extremely low frequency (ELF) waves in the 0.1 Hz range. These are next to impossible to produce any other way, because the length of an antenna is dictated by the wavelength of the signal it emits or receives. Generating whistler-mode VLF signals that enter the magnetosphere and propagate to the other hemisphere, interacting with Van Allen radiation belt particles along the way VLF remote sensing of the heated ionosphere
Research at the HAARP has included: Plasma line observations Stimulated electron emission observations. That is, HAARP stimulates plasma waves, which creates radio waves that are received on the ground. The spectrum depends on charge density, ion mass, magnetic field strength, etc. Gyro frequency heating research Spread F observations (blurring of ionospheric echoes of radio waves due to irregularities in electron density in the F layer) High-velocity trace runs Airglow observations Heating induced scintillation observations VLF and ELF generation observations Radio observations of meteors Polar mesospheric summer echoes (PMSE) have been studied, probing the mesosphere using the IRI as a powerful radar, and with a 28 MHz radar and two VHF radars at 49 MHz and 139 MHz. The presence of multiple radars spanning both HF and VHF bands allows scientists to make comparative measurements that may someday lead to an understanding of the processes that form these elusive phenomena. Research into extraterrestrial HF radar echos: the Lunar Echo experiment (2008). Testing of spread spectrum Transmitters (2009) Meteor shower impacts on the ionosphere Response and recovery of the ionosphere from solar flares and geomagnetic storms The effect of ionospheric disturbances on GPS satellite signal quality Producing high density plasma clouds in Earth's upper atmosphere The magnetic zenith effect, that airglow excited by heated electrons becomes much stronger when at the magnetic zenith (the direction of magnetic field). ~100 Rayleighs in O(1 S) 557.7 nm and O(1 D) 630 nm, the main spectral lines in aurora airglows.
Research conducted at the HAARP facility has allowed the US military to perfect communications with its fleet of submarines by sending radio signals over long distances.
Instrumentation and operation The main instrument at HAARP is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI). This is a high-power, high-frequency phased array radio transmitter with a set of 180 antennas, disposed in an array of 12×15 units that occupy a rectangle of about . It operates at 3.6 MW transmitter power. The IRI is used to temporarily energize a small portion of the ionosphere. The study of these disturbed volumes yields important information for understanding natural ionospheric processes.