Observing lightning and transient luminous events from the International Space Station during ILAN-ES: an astronaut's perspective

TL;DR

This paper details the first astronaut-led observational campaign from the ISS capturing lightning and transient luminous events using a high-speed camera, providing valuable data and methodology for future space-based lightning research.

Contribution

It introduces a novel human-operated observational approach from the ISS for lightning and TLEs, including detailed methodology and initial results from the ILAN-ES experiment.

Findings

Captured 45 TLEs including sprites, Elves, and Blue Corona Discharges.

Demonstrated feasibility of manual lightning observation from space.

Provided recommendations for future astronaut-led lightning research.

Abstract

The ILAN-ES (Imaging of Lightning And Nocturnal Emissions from Space) experiment was conducted by Israeli astronaut Eytan Stibbe in April 2022 as part of the Axiom Space company AX-1 private mission to the International Space Station, in the framework of Rakia, a set of experiments selected for flight by the Ramon Foundation and the Israeli Space Agency. The mission objective was to manually record lightning and transient luminous events from the Cupola window in the ISS, based on preliminary thunderstorm forecasts uploaded to the crew 24-36 hours in advance. A Nikon D6 camera with a 50 mm lens was used, in a video mode of 60 frames per second. During the 15-day mission, 82 different targets were uploaded to the ISS of which 20 were imaged by the astronauts, yielding a total harvest of 45 TLEs: sprites, Elves and Blue Corona Discharges. The methodology and execution by the ISS astronauts are described and recommendation for future observations by on-board human-operated instruments on the ISS are given