THE ANDOYA ROCKET RANGE (ARR) AND THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA), GODDARD SPACE F…

Public award description

THE ANDOYA ROCKET RANGE (ARR) AND THE NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA), GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER'S (GSFC'S) WALLOPS FLIGHT FACILITY (WFF) HAVE AGREED TO CONDUCT A COOPERATIVE SOUNDING ROCKET EXPERIMENT FOR TWIN ROCKETS TO INVESTIGATE CUSP ELECTRODYNAMICS (TRICE), FROM ARR, ANDENES, NORWAY. THE CAMPAIGN, SCHEDULED FOR DECEMBER 2007, WILL STUDY THE PHENOMENON OF MAGNETIC RECONNECTION BY MAKING HIGH RESOLUTION MEASUREMENTS IN A NEAR-EARTH SPACE PLASMA ENVIRONMENT. THE BASIC CONCEPT IS TO FLY TWO SIMILARLY INSTRUMENTED PAYLOADS IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO THE SAME MAGNETIC FIELD LINE, BUT AT DIFFERENT TIMES AND WITH A LARGE ALTITUDE SEPARATION. HIGH-RESOLUTION MEASUREMENTS WILL BE CONDUCTED ON BOTH PAYLOADS, AND THE RESULTING DATA WILL PROVIDE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEMPORAL/SPATIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MAGNETIC RECONNECTION PHENOMENON. DR. CRAIG A. KLETZING, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR (PI)/UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, WILL LAUNCH TWO BLACK BRANT XII SOUNDING ROCKETS. AN ADDITIONAL CAMPAIGN, ENTITLED SOUNDING OF THE CUSP ION FOUNTAIN ENERGIZATION REGION 2 (SCIFER-2), IS SCHEDULED FOR JANUARY 2008. SCIFER-2 WILL INVESTIGATE ION OUTFLOWS BETWEEN 200 AND 1,400 KM ALTITUDE IN THE POLAR CUSP WITH A SOUNDING ROCKET EXPERIMENT, THE EISCAT SVALBARD RADARS (ESR), AND THE EISCAT TROMSO RADARS TO UNDERSTAND THE TRANSITION OF ION OUTFLOWS FROM THE F REGION TO THE TOPSIDE IONOSPHERE. THE ESR AND TROMSO RADARS WILL BE USED TO MONITOR ION FLOWS UNDER THE ROCKET APOGEE FOR COMPARISON WITH THE SOUNDING ROCKET DATA AND TO DETERMINE THE LAUNCH CONDITIONS. THE SCIFER-2 OBJECTIVES WILL BRING CLOSURE TO UNDERSTANDING THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF ION OUTFLOW MEASURED BY RADARS AS THEY MAKE THE TRANSITION TO TRANSVERSE ION ACCELERATION AND ENABLE RADAR EXPERIMENTS TO BETTER CONTRIBUTE TO A WIDER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THE IONOSPHERE PARTICIPATES IN SUPPLYING MASS TO THE MAGNETOSPHERE, WHICH IS A CRITICAL COMPONENT OF IONOSPHERE-MAGNETOSPHERE COUPLING. SCIFER-2 IS IN AN EXCELLENT POSITION TO INVESTIGATE THE PRE-NOON CLEFT AND CUSP AND TO PROVIDE SPACE TRUTH FOR THE EISCAT RADARS. DR. PAUL KINTER, PI, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, WILL LAUNCH ONE BLACK BRANT XII SOUNDING ROCKET.