Cyprus radar for ionospheric situational awareness

CYprus Radar for Ionospheric Space Situational Awareness (CYRISSA), is a collaborative project funded from the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF) under the Call for Proposals for the «Small Scale Research Infrastructures» Programme within the framework of the «RESTART 2016-2020» Programmes for Research, Technological Development and Innovation. The key element of CYRISSA is the deployment of a mid-latitude Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) system in Cyprus (CyDARN). This will be a unique infrastructure with the capability to provide useful products based on advanced signal processing and visualisation techniques and associated algorithms developed through long-term efforts of the SuperDARN community. The radar field of view will cover a significant part of central and northern Europe making its placement ideal for synergies with other projects and an abundance of scientific instruments such as ionosondes, GPS receivers, magnetometers and LOFAR (Low Frequency Array). CYRISSA scientific objectives cover the investigation of a broad spectrum of topics including: the impact of SAPS on the mid-latitude ionosphere over Europe, large scale (km) irregularity occurrence in the mid-latitude ionosphere, Traveling ionospheric disturbance (TID) monitoring and multi-instrument plasma velocity comparison with Digisondes and satellite missions.