Data sets from most satellite experiments focus on global dynamics by integrating daily conditions over long periods, rather than local dynamics over short timescales. Reports from the ground-based 1993 airborne lidar and observations of the Hawaiian airglow/airborne noctilucent cloud campaigns (ALOHA/ANLC-93), with their high temporal and spatial resolution, have described the dynamic nature of the night airglow, or nightglow. Recognizing this dynamic activity, we note that space-based observations currently made from satellites will only poorly complement ground-based observations. Space-based observations that can be correlated to observations over a ground-based site are possible for only a few minutes per day. Ground-based observations can be complemented by space-based observations only by experiments operating in snapshot mode and using a high-performance instrumentation during the limited flight time over a ground station. The only space platform currently capable of supporting such experimentation is the space shuttle, or Space Transportation System (STS). In the future, appropriate payloads should be planned and deployed on the International Space Station to take advantage of its similar capabilities. The night airglow layer at the Earth's limb was monitored by the Arizona Airglow Experiment (GLO) from the space shuttle Endeavour throughout its 12-day STS 69 mission in September 1995. When the nightglow was observed from above, the O2 atmospheric band system was conspicuous. Patches of enhanced emission 2500--5000 km in lateral extent were observed. Intensity changes by a factor of 4 were common. Similar activity has been reported in data from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) remote sensing experiments high-resolution Doppler imager (HRDI) and wind imaging inferometer (WINDII). The O2(0,0) band emission cannot be observed from the ground because the intervening O2 atmosphere overhead is optically thick to this emission. However, the O2(0,0) band emission is the brightest in the nightglow spectrum observed from orbit. It is 22 times brighter than the O2(0,1) band, which is monitored regularly by ground-based observers. Thus the intense signature of the O2(0,0) band can be used as an indicator of dynamic activity in the nightglow emission layer. ¿ 1999 American Geophysical Union