NASA's Sounding Rockets
 
The spectacle of a mammoth rocket `breaking the surly bonds of Earth' takes
our breath away. Equally amazing are the secrets revealed to us by science
missions these rockets have launched - and NASA puts careful thought into
what kind of mission will best achieve that science. Sometimes a large,
multi-instrumented mission on a giant rocket is the best way to go. But
other missions are better suited to a smaller, less expensive rocket as the
key to getting a quick answer to a tightly focused science question. Like a
sounding rocket.  A sounding rocket is an instrument-carrying rocket
designed for research, such as taking measurements and performing
scientific experiments during a sub-orbital flight.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyfQish8yqA
 
Kristina Lynch, Professor of Physics at Dartmouth College says, "A
sounding rocket experiment can be designed in six months. From proposal
acceptance through data analysis, a mission can be done in 1-3 years, as
opposed to many more years for a typical satellite mission. The trade-off
is that you only get 10 minutes in space - but, as my colleagues in the
sounding rocket community say, `It's a great 10 minutes!'"
 
Sounding rockets afford a certain amount of flexibility. Because they can
be launched from temporary sites all over the world, sounding rockets can
be used for remote field studies. They can also be used to develop and test
new scientific instrumentation for use in more costly, longer duration
orbital missions. And because of their low cost and short lead time,
sounding rocket missions are perfect for use by university graduate
students, particularly to gather data for PhD dissertations.
 
Sounding rockets are especially well suited for studying areas of the
Earth's upper atmosphere inaccessible by orbital missions, providing the
only way to directly sample the lower portion of near-Earth space with
scientific probes. Furthermore, they are ideally suited to position an
experiment for an up-close look at auroras - beautiful green curtains of
light that sometimes dance across the night sky.
 
While auroras can be wondrous to behold, they are sparked by geomagnetic
storms with potential side-effects such as satellite malfunctions and power
outages. Telecommunications, air traffic, power grids, and Global
Positioning System signals are vulnerable. So, understanding this layer of
near Earth space is vital.
 
Lynch says, "Sounding rockets are used to get above the part of
Earth's atmosphere where we live and breathe. Above 60 miles (100 km), the
atmosphere includes an electrically charged gas where charged particles
flit around, collide, respond to magnetic and electric fields, and produce
an aurora. These `northern and southern lights' appear flame-like, but the
movement looks slower than that of a flame, and their structure can be more
orderly. We want to understand this movement and structure. Is the movement
fast or slow? Why? Where is it going?"
 
Lynch is working on a sounding rocket mission that could provide some
answers. ISINGLASS, short for Ionospheric Structuring: In Situ and
Ground-based Low Altitude StudieS, launched on March 2 and is one of about
20 sounding rockets that NASA will be launching in 2017.
 
ISINGLASS deployed an array of payloads launched by a single rocket to take
measurements at several locations in an aurora simultaneously.
Understanding what the aurora's visual patterns signify within the aurora
itself can serve as an analog to help scientists understand what's
happening farther out, even extending this information to auroras on other
planets.
 
All it takes . is "a great 10 minutes."
 
For more news about science in and around Earth's atmosphere, stay tuned to
science.nasa.gov.
 
 
Regards,
 
Roger

--- DB 3.99 + W10 (1703)