H.A.A.R.P SHUT DOWNThe High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), located in Gakona, Al

H.A.A.R.P SHUT DOWNThe High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), located in Gakona, Alaska, has closed down. The facility has been shuttered since early 2013, and the site is currently abandoned. HAARP’s manager, Dr James Keeney at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, said the closure effectively comes down to money. No one is currently on site, access roads are blocked, buildings are chained and the power turned off; HAARP’s website through the University of Alaska no longer is available.The goal of HAARP was to study the properties and behaviour of Earth’s ionosphere, which is part of the upper atmosphere and lies at about 85 km (53 mi) to 600 km (370 mi) altitude. The HAARP programme began in 1990 and the major construction at the facility was completed in 2007. HAARP was used to study the natural processes in the ionosphere that occur under the natural, yet stronger, influence of solar interaction. This also includes studying how the ionosphere affects radio signals. The facility was sited in Alaska as it is the only US state in the auroral region and its ionosphere has a variety of conditions that HAARP can study. HAARP itself consists of 180 antennas within a land area of about 14 hectares (35 acres). The array and its integrated transmitters have a total radiated power capability of about 3,600 kilowatts.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is expected on the HAARP site as a client to finish up some research later this year. DARPA has nearly $8.8 million in its FY 14 budget to research “physical aspects of natural phenomena such as magnetospheric sub-storms, fire, lightning and geo-physical phenomena.”HAARP gave notice two years ago that it would be shutting down and therefore did not submit a budget request for FY 15. According to Keeney, the diesel generators on site no longer pass the Clean Air Act, and repairing them to meet EPA standards will cost $800,000. Running the facility costs $300,000 a month and to run it at full capacity for 10 days costs $500,000.The HAARP facility has been integral to many different research projects and so many will keenly miss its closure. In 1997, HAARP transmitted test signals on HF (3.4 MHz and 6.99 MHz) and solicited reports from hams and short-wave listeners in the “Lower 48” to determine how well the HAARP transmissions could be heard to the south. In 2007, Radar pulses from the HAARP research station were bounced off the Moon and picked up by a radio telescope system. This was the lowest frequency radar echo from the Moon ever detected on Earth; it took 2.4 seconds to radio the Moon. Scientists analysing the echo gained insights into the properties of the lunar sub-surface topography (http://on.fb.me/196ueru). More recently, HAARP scientists successfully produced a sustained high-density plasma cloud in Earth’s upper atmosphere (http://on.fb.me/15364Kp). HAARP research is published in a number of journals, including the Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, and Radio Science. Some are available here: http://bit.ly/13RZA3ZThough the Air Force has possession of the facility for now, if no other agencies step forward to take it over, HAARP will be dismantled.-TELPrevious posts on HAARP research: http://on.fb.me/196ueru, http://on.fb.me/15364Kphttp://www.arrl.org/news/view/haarp-facility-shuts-downImage: an aerial view of the HAARP facility, copyright ARRL -- source link

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