The lower thermosphere and ionosphere (LTI) is a key, though poorly understood, area at the interface between our atmosphere and space. By virtue of its nearly-polar orbit, Daedalus will sample all latitudes of the globe every few months by its orbit perigee precession, and all local times throughout the mission lifetime by its local time precession. In so doing the mission will build up a global statistical picture of the LTI, in terms of parameters that until now have been sampled only sparsely and sporadically by sounding rockets, such as neutral atmosphere density, winds and composition, and electrical conductivity. Throughout its lifetime, the Daedalus mission will determine both the amount of variability and the longer-term climatology of these and other parameters within key regions that will encompass the auroral zones, polar caps, mid-latitude electric current systems and turbulent plasmas near the equator.