Since 2015 it has been operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Its original purpose was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. It was designed and built by BAE Advanced Technologies. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Initially HAARP was jointly funded by the U.S. Other instruments, such as a VHF and a UHF radar, a fluxgate magnetometer, a digisonde (an ionospheric sounding device), and an induction magnetometer, are used to study the physical processes that occur in the excited region. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere. The most prominent instrument at HAARP is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high-power radio frequency transmitter facility operating in the high frequency (HF) band.
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program ( HAARP) is a University of Alaska Fairbanks program which researches the ionosphere – the highest, ionized part of Earth's atmosphere.
