Sounding rocket projects in Oulu
spaceweb@oulu.fi - last update: 7 June 1999, 1200 UT
The Oulu group has earlier not been involved in the development of rocket borne instruments or research using sounding rocket data. However, the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory (SGO), currently part of the University of Oulu, has built magnetometers for sounding rockets. During the winter 1997-98 a common effort to start analysis of the available rocket data was initialized. As the name of one of the projects, Auroral Turbulence II, indicates, the sounding rockets are often shot into auroral forms, where many plasmaphysical processes are found operating.
What was the Auroral Turbulence II Mission about ?
The purpose of this mission was to measure the E and B fields in an auroral arc as well as electric currents in the upper atmosphere. A sounding rocket (launched from Poker Flat/Alaska at 0836UT, 11 Feb 97) brought three payloads (named from top "baby","daughter" and "mother") into the upper atmosphere (apogee 500 km). The payloads were equiped with an unique sub-nT noise magnetometer as well as particle, wave and field measuring devices. While a slowly separation (10 m/s) of the payloads a three point measuring methode was used. The flight took about 20 min and crossed two light auroral arcs. This is the first mission of its kind, which crossed auroral arcs! There are all-sky movies available from this time (go to the video clips). Satellite coverage was done (eg. Polar and Polar at NSSDC)! Optical informations are not given because of the clouds. Therefore the relative positions of the payloads are difficult to find. Those position data are primary important. The payloads were equiped with strobe light. People from MPI/Germany try to reconstruct the positions ! A good estimate about each pahyload trajectory was done by P.Pietowski (UNH).
For the time of the rocket flight there are made several ground based measurements from Poker Flat (Meridian Scanning Photometer and riometer).
The contact persons for sounding rocket projects are Aarne Ranta (SGO) and Michael Danielides (Oulu).
Related links
- Auroral Turbulence II - Data Analysis; Introduction and description of the research work.
- Auroral Turbulence II - All Sky Video Clips; AVIs and RMs for speacial flight events.
- Auroral Turbulence II - Flight Analysis.
- Auroral Turbulence II Workshop, 30. 3. - 1.4. 1998, Sodankylä
- POLAR Satellite Coverage of the Auroral Turbulence II Mission
- University of the New Hampshire, Space Physics (Auroral Turbulence II)
- Royal Institute of Technology, Space Physics (Auroral Turbulence II)
See also: