Dome C SuperDARN Radars

The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) has been developed in the last 10 years for the study of the high latitude ionosphere in the framework of Solar-Terrestrial Relations and of the investigation of the near Earth environment. SuperDARN consists of two longitudinal chains, in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, comprising respectively of 9 and 6 HF coherent radars. It is desirable that the longitudinal coverage in the Southern hemisphere be completed through the installation at Dome C of two radars whose fields of view should point from the invariant geomagnetic South pole towards the auroral regions not covered yet by the network. This research is based on a Franco-Italian collaboration with an equal share of financial involvement. The institutes involved in this project are the Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario of INAF, Rome, for the italian side, and the Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environment of CNRS, Orleans, for the French side.