Characterization of the atmospheric environment in near space/ultra-low orbit based on ICON/MIGHTI data

The near-space and ultra-low-orbit region's strategic value has gradually attracted various countries' attention and focus. The rapid development of near-space and ultra-low-orbit vehicle technologies in recent years has put forward higher requirements for atmospheric environment sensing, modeling, and dynamics research in near-space and ultra-low-orbit regions. Compared with the research progress in foreign countries, China's observation data in the near space have been greatly improved due to the Meridian Project. However, observation data for the ultra-low orbit region are still scarce. At present, the development of ultra-low-orbit spacecraft technology has put forward an urgent demand for the study of atmospheric environment characteristics in the near space and ultra-low-orbit region. The United States launched the ICON satellite in 2019, whose MIGHTI payload is used to detect atmospheric temperatures and winds in the 90km~300km altitude range, providing precious global data for carrying out characterization studies of atmospheric environments in the near-space and ultra-low-orbit region. Historically, atmospheric detection in this altitude range has been difficult, and the detection data and studies are relatively scarce compared to other atmospheric layers. In this paper, wind and temperature observations from ICON/MIGHTI, temperature observations from TIMED/SABER, and the HWM14 model are used to characterize the atmospheric environment.