Суборбитальные пуски (научные и экспериментальные)

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AZURE

NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 4 ч. назад

Moments before the AZURE mission released colorful tracers 71 to 155 miles high in Norway, NASA photographer Lee Wingfield captured this image of one of the sounding rockets leaving the launch rails about a second after launch!

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AZURE

NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 22 мин. назад

Rocket Report: It's mission complete for AZURE! The two Black Brant XI sounding rockets lifted off at 6:14 p.m. and 6:16 p.m. EDT from @AndoyaSpace, reaching 200 and 202 miles in altitude before returning back to Earth.

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AZURE

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/sounding-rocket-mission-will-trace-auroral-winds

April 8, 2019

Sounding Rocket Mission Will Trace Auroral Winds

Editor's note, April 8, 2019: The Auroral Zone Upwelling Rocket Experiment or AZURE mission was successfully conducted April 5 from the Andøya Space Center in Norway. The first Black Brant XI sounding rocket was launched at 6:14 p.m. EDT and flew to an altitude of 200 miles, followed by the launch of the second Black Brant XI at 6:16 p.m. EDT flying to an altitude of 202 miles. The initial assessment from the field showed that the rockets were launched into a good science event and ground based photos/data of the vapor releases were obtained from at least two locations. Preliminary reports state that the scientist for the mission were very pleased with the results.

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AZURE

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasa-launches-two-rockets-studying-auroras

April 8, 2019

NASA Launches Two Rockets Studying Auroras


One of two Black Brant XI rockets leaves the launch pad at the Andøya Space Center in Norway.
Credits: NASA/Lee Wingfield


Colorful clouds formed by the release of vapors from the two AZURE rockets allow scientist to measure auroral winds.
Credits: NASA/Lee Wingfield

NASA successfully launched the Auroral Zone Upwelling Rocket Experiment or AZURE mission on April 5 from the Andøya Space Center in Norway.

Two Black Brant XI-A sounding rockets were launched at 6:14 and 6:16 p.m. EDT on April 5 carrying scientific instruments for studying the energy exchange within an aurora.

The AZURE mission is designed to make measurements of the atmospheric density and temperature with instruments on the rockets and deploying visible gas tracers, trimethyl aluminum (TMA) and a barium/strontium mixture, which ionizes when exposed to sunlight. The vapors were released over the Norwegian Sea at 71 through 150 miles altitude.

These mixtures, using substances similar to those found in fireworks, created colorful clouds that allow researchers to track the flow of neutral and charged particles with the auroral wind. By tracking the movement of these colorful clouds via ground-based photography and triangulating their moment-by-moment position in three dimensions, AZURE will provide valuable data on the vertical and horizontal flow of particles in two key regions of the ionosphere over a range of different altitudes.

Many people believe the Earth's atmosphere "ends" some 20-30 miles above the ground. However, the air we breathe does not abruptly end at some predefined point — instead, it gradually thins. At 150 to 200 miles above Earth, the "air" is extremely thin and these vapor clouds disperse rapidly and follow the winds which can be moving at a few hundred miles per hour.

AZURE is one of nine missions being conducted as part of the Grand Challenge Initiative (GCI) – Cusp, a series of international sounding rocket missions planned for launch in 2018 - 2020.

NASA and U.S. scientists are joining those from Norway, Japan, Canada and other countries to investigate the physics of heating and charged particle precipitation in this region called the geomagnetic cusp — one of the few places on Earth with easy access to the electrically charged solar wind that pervades the solar system.

NASA previously conducted two missions in December 2018 and two in January 2019 as part of the Initiative.  The final two NASA missions — the Cusp Heating Investigation and the Cusp Region Experiment — are scheduled for November 2019.

AZURE is supported through NASA's Sounding Rocket Program at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA's Heliophysics Division manages the sounding rocket program.

By Keith Koehler
NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.

Last Updated: April 8, 2019
Editor: Rob Garner

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CLASP-2

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2019/clasp-2-extreme-rocket-science-in-the-desert.html

April 9, 2019

CLASP-2: Extreme Rocket Science in the Desert


CLASP-2 project scientist Joten Okamoto of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), left, principal investigator David McKenzie of NASA, principal investigator Ryohko Ishikawa of NAOJ, principal investigator Javier Trujillo Bueno of the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, and project scientist Laurel Rachmeler of NASA, right, pose for a photograph Wednesday, March 28, 2019, at White Sands Missile Range in Las Cruces, New Mexico. CLASP-2 is scheduled to launch April 11.
Credits: U.S. Army Photo by Louis Rosales

NASA scientists and engineers are in the New Mexico desert preparing to launch a research rocket equipped with a cutting-edge Sun-gazing instrument to study the solar atmosphere. The CLASP-2 mission is making strides towards its upcoming launch, set for April 11, 2019, fr om the White Sands Missile Range in the New Mexico desert.

CLASP-2, short for Chromospheric Layer Spectropolarimeter-2, is a sounding rocket mission. Smaller, more affordable and faster to design and build than large-scale satellite missions, sounding rockets offer a way for the team to test their latest ideas and instruments — and achieve rapid science results.

The CLASP-2 instrument uses ultraviolet light to look for hidden details in a complex region of the Sun's atmosphere called the chromosphere. Scientists hope that CLASP-2 experiment will help unlock new clues about how the Sun's energy travels up through the layers of its atmosphere, and eventually out into space.

To achieve that goal, a Black Brandt IX sounding rocket will catapult the instrument above Earth's atmosphere wh ere it will observe the Sun for about five minutes. There, it will take images, as well as polarization spectra – observations that restrict incoming light to a specific direction and then record the intensity of individual wavelengths of ultraviolet light. The team is focusing on obtaining polarization measurements never before gathered at these ultraviolet wavelengths. The experiment will then parachute back to the desert to be recovered by helicopter.

CLASP-2 is a follow-on mission to the Chromospheric Lyman-Alpha Spectro-Polarimeter, which gave us the first-ever polarization measurements of ultraviolet light emitted from the sun's chromosphere. Previous polarization measurements were restricted to visible and infrared light emitted from other regions of the Sun's atmosphere.

Polarization measurements are important because they provide information on the strength and direction of the Sun's magnetic field, which plays a central role in sculpting the solar atmosphere. Understanding how the magnetic field works is vital to predicting powerful solar activity and protecting space and Earth technology from potential damage from geomagnetic storms.
On the ground, researchers will use advanced computer modeling to interpret the data collected by CLASP-2, and better understand how the energy moves through the chromosphere. And even as CLASP-2 uncovers new information, scientists working with its data will rely on data from other observatories to help put those details in context.

CLASP-2's launch and data collection will be coordinated with two satellites: NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS--a satellite observatory that captures non-polarized spectra and images of the Sun's atmosphere--and the joint JAXA/NASA Hinode satellite observatory, making magnetic measurements at the Sun's surface as well as images and spectroscopy in the much hotter atmospheric layer known as the corona. Also taking coordinated data are the Dunn Solar Telescope in Sunspot, New Mexico, and the Goode Solar Telescope in Big Bear, California.

Truly a global mission, CLASP-2 is an international collaboration led by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center with contributions from Japan, Spain and France. CLASP-2 is supported through NASA's Sounding Rocket Program at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. NASA's Heliophysics Division manages the sounding rocket program.

Last Updated: April 10, 2019
Editor: Lee Mohon

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CLASP-2

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2019/clasp-2-extreme-rocket-science-in-the-desert.html

CLASP-2: Extreme Rocket Science in the Desert

UPDATE --  4:15 p.m. EDT, April 11: The NASA Chromospheric Layer Spectropolarimeter-2 or CLASP-2 sounding rocket mission was successfully conducted April 11 from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Launched aboard a NASA Black Brant IX sounding rocket at 12:51 p.m. EDT, the CLASP-2 payload flew to an altitude 170 miles before descending by parachute. The payload was recovered and is reported in good condition. Good data was received and the science team is reported to be happy with the results of the mission.

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CLASP-2

Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 3 ч. назад

NASA-Marshall's CLASP 2 suborbital solar telescope, flight NASA 36.332NS, flew to a 274 km altitude at 1651 UTC Apr 11 from White Sands

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Cusp

NASA ScienceCasts: On the Cusp of Understanding

ScienceAtNASA

Опубликовано: 14 апр. 2019 г.

NASA is using sounding rockets to study the cusp, a point where the magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet dips inward and touches down to Earth.

(4:04)

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ASPIRE

NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 4 ч. назад

Even though NASA launches sounding rockets all over the world, we're celebrating #EarthDay with a photo of our home in Virginia from space. The rocket's second stage is seen falling away while the ASPIRE mission deploys a test of the Mars 2020 rover parachute above.
#PictureEarth

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АНОНС

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WINDY. Анонс

NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 11 ч. назад

Heads up, Marshall Islands! NASA is launching the Too WINDY mission on two sounding rockets this month . The mission will release a non-harmful vapor and may leave some strange looking clouds overhead for about 30 minutes.

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https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/2019/feature/nasa-mission-to-study-earth-s-atmosphere-by-forming-artificial-night-time-clouds-over

May 30, 2019

NASA Mission to Study Earth's Atmosphere by Forming Artificial Night-time Clouds over Marshall Islands


One of the two Too-WINDY payloads is prepared for vibration testing at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility prior to shipment to the Marshall Islands.
Credits: NASA / Berit Bland

A NASA rocket mission to study disturbances in the upper atmosphere, which interfere with communication and technology systems, will form night-time white artificial clouds visible by residents of the Republic of the Marshall Islands during two rocket flights to occur between June 9 – 21, 2019.

This the second flight of the Waves and Instabilities fr om a Neutral Dynamo, or WINDY, mission. The mission this time is referred to as Too-WINDY -- it's catchier than WINDY 2.

Too-WINDY will study a phenomenon that occurs in the ionosphere – a layer of charged particles in the upper atmosphere. Known as equatorial spread F, or ESF, these disturbances occur after sunset at latitudes near the equator in part of the ionosphere known as the F region. The disturbances can interfere with radio communication, navigation and imaging systems and pose a hazard to technology and society that depends on it.

The Too-WINDY mission consists of two NASA suborbital sounding rockets that will be launched five minutes apart in a window between 8 p.m. and 3.a.m. local time (4 a.m. and 1 p.m. EDT) June 9 - 21 fr om Roi-Namur. The Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands is near the magnetic equator, wh ere post-sunset ionosphere storms are more intense, making the site an ideal location for these studies.

The first rocket launched, a two-stage 47-foot long Black Brant IX rocket, will carry and release both tri-methyl aluminum (TMA) and lithium. The release of the lithium vapors is not visible to the naked-eye but can be viewed with the special cameras.

The TMA will form white artificial clouds that glow in the night sky. Scientists on the ground and from a NASA Langley Research Center aircraft will photograph the movement of these clouds to measure the winds and energetic particles that are in motion in the upper atmosphere. The clouds are expected to be visible for about 30 minutes.

The TMA is deployed between 50 and 112 miles altitude, while the lithium is deployed between 155 and 210 miles altitude. Both substances, which are harmless after release from the experiment, move with the atmospheric winds and can therefore be used to determine the wind speeds and direction over the area wh ere these ionosphere storms are occurring.

TMA reacts spontaneously on contact with oxygen to produce a pale white glow visible from the ground. For the Too-WINDY mission, sunlight reflected by the Moon, will illuminate lithium producing an emission that can be detected with cameras equipped with narrow-band filters. Using moonlight allows the launches to occur later in the evening when the critical ESF conditions occur.

The second rocket, also a Black Brant IX, will be launched five minutes after the first rocket. The second rocket carries instruments to measure ionosphere densities and electric and magnetic fields present in these storms.

During WINDY, launched in September 2017, the second rocket payload did not obtain useful data. Improvements have been made to the payload's instruments to correct for the anomaly during the WINDY mission.

The ionosphere is defined as the layer of Earth's atmosphere that is ionized by solar and cosmic radiation. Ionization occurs when incoming energetic radiation strips electrons from atoms and molecules, creating temporarily charged particles. The nighttime ionosphere has two layers E and F. Disturbances in the F layer, the layer studied by Too-WINDY, degrade radio and radar signals at magnetic latitudes. Predicting these disturbances ahead of time, could help improve the reliability of space-borne and ground-based communication systems.

Too-WINDY attempts to answer questions about the origin of ESF by measuring how horizontal thermosphere winds influence the formation of ESF, as well as taking direct measurements of ionosphere densities and electric and magnetic fields inside these storms.

Data from the ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar, or ALTAIR, located on Kwajalein Atoll will play a key a role in the mission. ALTAIR is used to monitor the state of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere in order to determine when the large-scale disruptions occur and will tell the scientists when to launch the rockets. ALTAIR also will be used to monitor the evolution of the ESF after the rockets launch.

Too-WINDY is supported by researchers from Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York; Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina; and Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts.

Header Image Caption and Credit; Project team members from Wallops prepare the launch pads and shelters on Roi-Namur. NASA/Libby West.

More information on NASA sounding rocket missions and the use of artificial clouds and vapor tracers in science research is available at:

www.nasa.gov/soundingrockets

NASA's Sounding Rocket Program is conducted at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility, on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Wallops is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA's Heliophysics Division manages the sounding-rocket program for the agency.

Keith Koehler
NASA's Wallops Flight Facility
757-824-1579
keith.a.koehler@nasa.gov

Last Updated: June 3, 2019
Editor: Patrick Black

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Too-WINDY

Закрываемые зоны

[HYDROPAC 1838/2019 (81)

NORTH PACIFIC.
MARSHALL ISLANDS.
DNC 12.
1. HAZARDOUS OPERATIONS 090800Z TO 091400Z JUN,
...ALTERNATE 100800Z TO 101400Z, 110800Z TO 111400Z,
...120800Z TO 121400Z, 130800Z TO 131400Z,
...140800Z TO 141400Z, 150800Z TO 151400Z,
...160800Z TO 161400Z, 170800Z TO 171400Z,
...180900Z TO 181500Z, 191000Z TO 191600Z,
...201100Z TO 201700Z, 211200Z TO 211800Z JUN
...IN AREAS BETWEEN:
...A. 11-00N 09-12N AND 163-18E 165-18E.
...B. 09-30N 09-18N AND 167-18E 167-30E.
2. CANCEL THIS MSG 211900Z JUN 19.

( 050827Z JUN 2019 )

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http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Research/Rockets_evaporating_droplets_and_x-raying_metals/(print)

Maser 12 launch

ROCKETS, EVAPORATING DROPLETS AND X-RAYING METALS

7 June 2019
Years of preparation, and the finale is over in six minutes. This month a sounding rocket will launch two ESA experiments to an altitude of 260 km to provide six minutes of weightlessness as they free-fall back to Earth.

Rockets carrying satellites into orbit are typically launched fr om sites around the equator, such as Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. There are alternatives for experiments in microgravity and ESA runs Maser campaigns from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden, shooting 400 kg worth of scientific equipment into the sky.

This year's campaign will host investigations looking at the finer details of metal casting and how fluids evaporate. 

Evaporating nano-liquids

Спойлер

Maser 14 configuration

Temperature control is a constant preoccupation for engineers on Earth, but even more so in space wh ere the extreme environment requires innovative solutions to keep equipment and astronauts at the right temperature.

The ARLES experiment (Advanced Research on Liquid Evaporation in Space) investigates how liquids evaporate in microgravity. The research focuses on understanding how liquids can best be used to transfer heat and could help improve thermal control systems in space.

The experiment will repeatedly evaporate droplets of less than 10 microliters in microgravity under different conditions – including adding an electric field to the mix – to see how they behave. Infrared video and interferometers record the process for researchers around the world to analyse.

One liquid will include graphene nanoparticles, a material which is of particular interest among the scientific community. The experiment will also increase understanding of how nanoparticles in the fluid coats surfaces as the fluid evaporates.


ARLES experiment

Daniele Mangini, ESA's science coordinator for the experiment says, "This technique could be a novel way of creating smart coatings, membranes and sensors and even create complex nano-structures. Nano-particles are difficult to test in the closed environment on the International Space Station, so a sounding rocket campaign is ideal for this experiment.

"Weightlessness is necessary for this analysis. On Earth, gravity causes the deposits to spread unevenly, which is often detrimental for applications. It is more difficult to investigate the underlying phenomena because many effects, such as sedimentation, thermo-capillarity and natural convection make it hard to focus on what we are interested in researching.

"The six exciting minutes in microgravity will allow the scientific team to disentangle the processes, helping to understand characteristic signatures during nano-particle deposition and self-assembly."

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Growing metal crystals

Спойлер

Metal crystals

In the second ESA experiment, particles will also be added to a molten metal alloy to improve the resulting properties. The XRMON experiment is a recurrent flyer on sounding rockets and is investigating how metal alloys form, searching to improve the materials we use in our everyday life.

On this 14th Maser campaign a 0.2-mm-thin piece of aluminium-copper alloy will be melted and then solidified in weightlessness. An x-ray beam will illuminate the metal sample and a camera will record it, similar to a medical radiography.

"We teach how metals solidify to students in university, and this really allows us to see it happening, in weightlessness" says ESA's science coordinator for this experiment Wim Sillekens.


Casting metal

Researchers are interested in how microstructures form as the metal solidifies.

"On Earth, the crystals in this alloy will rise in the liquid as they form – somewhat like how water ice crystals become ice cubes and will rise to the top of your drink," continues Wim, "in weightlessness there is no buoyancy – in space an ice cube would stay suspended in your drink – allowing us to investigate the crystal-forming process more easily."

The XRMON experiment ran on the Maser 12 campaign in 2012, and then on the Maser 13 campaign in 2015, but with different parameters allowing researchers to compare data and the cast alloy to further improve techniques.

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Down to Earth

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Maser 13 recovery

It only takes the Maser rocket 45 seconds to leave the atmosphere and it lands back on Earth in less than 15 minutes. Parachutes deploy to lessen the impact of touchdown to 30 km/h in the wilderness of Sweden.

Antonio Verga, ESA's head of non-Space Station payloads and platforms, says "Helicopters will return the experiments to Esrange and the whole process will be completed in two hours, but the unique results typically give many years of data to process and analyse!"

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The flights are part of ESA's SciSpace programme that allows researchers to run experiments in altered gravity – from hypergravity to the International Space Station – to investigate our Universe and improve the technology we use in space and in everyday life. Another sounding rocket campaign will be held in October this year.

Another platform for microgravity experimentation is the Space Rider laboratory. To be launched on a Vega-C rocket, the high-tech space lab can fit up to 800 kg of payloads inside the environmentally controlled cargo bay that will run in low-Earth orbit for a minimum of two months before returning its payloads to Earth.

Like sounding rockets, Space Rider will enable a range of experiments in microgravity and open opportunities for educational missions, starting in 2022.

Rockets are the backbone of all space-based endeavours. ESA in partnership with industry is developing next-generation space transportation vehicles, Ariane 6, Vega-C, and Space Rider. At Space19+, ESA will propose further enhancements to these programmes and introduce new ideas to help Europe work together to build a robust space transportation economy. This week, take a look at what ESA is doing to ensure continued autonomous access to space for Europe and join the conversation online by following the hashtag #RocketWeek

Note to editors:

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The ARLES experiment involves researchers from these institutes:
•       Aix-Marseille University – IUSTI (AMU)
•       Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, Technische Universität Darmstadt
•       Transfers Interfaces and Processes, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB-TIPs)
•       University of Pisa (UNIPI)
•       Microgravity Research Centre - Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB-MRC)
•       Department of Mechanical Engineering (YU), York University
•       Université de Liège (ULg), Institut de Physique
•       National Microgravity Laboratory (NML/CAS), Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
•       Institute of Thermophysics, Novosibirsk, Russia (IT)
•       School of Engineering, University of Edinburgh
•       Department of Chemical Engineering, Loughborough University, Leicestershire
 
The XRMON experiment involves researchers from Aix-Marseille University, France, (Henri Nguyen-Thi and Guillaume Reinhart) and is supported by science teams from across Europe.

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http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2019/06/Maser_14_infographic

MASER 14 INFOGRAPHIC


(3.01 MB)

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http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2019/06/ARLES_experiment

ARLES EXPERIMENT

ARLES experiment setup at the Esrange Space Center in Sweden.

The ARLES experiment (Advanced Research on Liquid Evaporation in Space) investigates how liquids evaporate in microgravity. The research focuses on understanding how liquids can best be used to transfer heat and could help improve thermal control systems in space.

Temperature control is a constant preoccupation for engineers on Earth, but even more so in space where the extreme environment requires innovative solutions to keep equipment and astronauts at the right temperature.

The experiment will repeatedly evaporate droplets of less than 10 microliters in microgravity under different conditions – including adding an electric field to the mix – to see how they behave. Infrared video and interferometers record the process for researchers around the world to analyse.

One liquid will include graphene nanoparticles, an innovative material which is of particular interest among the scientific community. The experiment will also increase understanding of how nanoparticles in the fluid coats surfaces as the fluid evaporates.

Daniele Mangini, ESA's science coordinator for the experiment says, "This technique could be a novel way of creating smart coatings, membranes and sensors and even create complex nano-structures. Nanoparticles are difficult to test in the closed environment on the International Space Station, so a sounding rocket campaign is ideal for this experiment.

"Weightlessness is necessary for this analysis. On Earth, gravity causes the deposits to spread unevenly, which is often detrimental for applications. It is more difficult to investigate the underlying phenomena because many effects, such as sedimentation, thermo-capillarity and natural convection make it hard to focus on what we are interested in researching.

"The six exciting minutes in microgravity will allow the scientific team to disentangle the different processes, helping to understand characteristic signatures during nano-particle deposition and self-assembly."

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Too-WINDY

NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 6 ч. назад

Two rockets and one heck of a team.

Greetings from the sounding rocket crew that will launch the Too-WINDY mission from Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands! The launch window opens June 9.

Details on the science mission: https://go.nasa.gov/2XoQb18 .

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Too-WINDY 

Карта закрываемых зон

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RockOn/RockSat-C

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/wallops/2019/students-boosting-technical-skills-at-nasa-wallops-rocket-week

June 10, 2019

Students Boosting Technical Skills at NASA Wallops' Rocket Week


Map of sounding rocket launch potential visibility map for the area surrounding NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore.
Credits: NASA

University and community college students will boost their technical skills as rocket scientists building experiments for space flight during Rocket Week June 14-21, 2019, at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
...
Rocket Week culminates at 5:30 a.m. EDT, Thursday, June 20, with the launch of a NASA Terrier-Improved Orion suborbital sounding rocket carrying the students' experiments. The rocket is 36 feet long and the payload weighs 667 pounds.

The NASA Visitor Center at Wallops will open at 4:30 a.m. EDT on launch day for viewing the flight. Live coverage of the mission is scheduled to begin at 5 a.m. on the Wallops Ustream site. Launch updates also are available via the Wallops Facebook and Twitter sites. Facebook Live coverage begins at 5:15 a.m. The rocket launch is expected to be seen fr om the eastern shore of Virginia and Maryland.

The rocket will carry 28 experiments (measuring acceleration, humidity, pressure, temperature and radiation counts) fr om the RockOn! Program, nine experiments in the RockSat-C program and more than 80 small cubes with experiments developed by middle school and high school students as part of the Cubes in Space program, a partnership between idoodlelearning inc. and the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.

The rocket will fly the student experiments to nearly 73-miles altitude. The experiments will land via parachute in the Atlantic Ocean wh ere they will be recovered by boat. The participants should have their experiments returned to them later in the day to begin their data analysis.

Conducted with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia, RockOn! is in its twelfth year and RockSat-C its eleventh year.

Participants in RockOn! receive instruction on the basics required to develop a scientific payload for flight on a suborbital rocket. After learning the basics in RockOn!, students may then participate in RockSat-C, wh ere during the school year they design and build a more complicated experiment for rocket flight.

"The RockOn! and RockSat-C programs have shown that they are excellent training grounds for students exploring future careers in the aerospace industry," said Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium.  "The interest in the programs continue to grow and is evident as this year was the earliest that we filled the openings for RockOn!."

The RockOn!,and RockSat-C programs are supported by the NASA Sounding Rocket Program. RockOn! also is supported by NASA's Office of STEM Engagement and NASA's National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia, as well as the program participants.

NASA's Sounding Rocket Program is conducted at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility, which is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA's Heliophysics Division manages the sounding rocket program for the agency.

RockSat-C participants and projects

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[/li]
• Cubes in Space
  Cubes in Space is an educational program for students age 11-18 to design experiments in a 40 mm cube and launch on a sounding rocket. The program builds awareness in the pre-college age group about easily accessible, short-duration, and relatively low-cost spaceflight missions and opportunities in support of scientific exploration objectives.
• Clemson University, South Carolina
  The Clemson University team is developing a single segment of a spring based soft robotic arm to better analyze the forces and actuation of soft robotic devices during flight. From this experiment, the team is hoping to produce deflection analysis using a camera and motors that will adjust the robotic arm to stay fixed on a single point throughout the duration of flight. In addition, the team created an outreach program for local students to encourage interest in STEM and will fly a GPS receiver that was discussed and analyzed through the program.
• Delgado Community College, New Orleans
  The Delgado Community College Shoe LAACES team is measuring the intensity of radiation and relative abundance of components produced by cosmic rays in the atmosphere using a Geiger Muller Tube and Cosmic Watch Scintillator system. In addition, the team will measure and record environmental data (pressure, temperature, humidity) and acceleration data throughout flight. The team hopes to use their data to baseline future cosmic ray components and assist cosmic ray intensity research at their college.
• Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York
  The Hobart and William Smith Colleges team is studying the magnetic fields of the Earth and muon flux at different altitudes, and studying materials that will dampen vibration in order to open up new possibilities in the future for flying more sensitive equipment on sounding rockets. In addition, the team has created an outreach program for local middle school students to understand the science behind their mission and promote youth interest in STEM.
• Langston University, Oklahoma
  The Langston University Lunar-BC team is studying the effect of suborbital micro-gravity effects on immune cell regulation. The team is placing plant and probiotic metabolite extractions in vials at varying distances from the center of their canister to show the effects at a molecular level of gene expression changes in activated immune cells during launch and at apogee. In addition, the team is flying environmental sensors (temperature, pressure, humidity) and an accelerometer to refine their results. The project is in conjunction with their existing NASA project investigating natural countermeasures to astronaut immune system dysregulation.
• Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey
  The Stevens Institute of Technology team is conducting three separate experiments. First, the team is creating a reflow oven capable of soldering surface mount electronic components to a printed circuit board in the microgravity environment. With the oven reaching internal temperatures of 200 C and studying heat dissipation from the high temperature experiment, this will inform the development of a reflow soldering oven to be used on long duration manned space missions. Next, the team is creating a system that can record accelerometer data in the payload during launch that will help to build a model of the rocket telemetry. This will be accomplished with a pair of two-axis accelerometers, with one acting as a control and the other utilizing a passive material to provide filtering. The final experiment is measuring high-speed boundary layer transition from laminar to turbulent pressure waves using both a high and low frequency pressure transducer. The team hopes to characterize the transition phases of the boundary layer through various pressures along the surface of the vehicle.
• Temple University, Philadelphia
  The goal of the Temple University Space Owls experiment is to detect muon radiation in the upper atmosphere while gathering auxiliary sensor data to better understand the performance of the design. After gathering the accelerometer data, the payload will be modeled with 3D software to show the orientation and activity of the canister during flight. Through this experiment, the team hopes their results will benefit not only scientists who study this field but also engineers and astronauts who design systems for these altitudes.
• University of Delaware, Newark
  The University of Delaware team is interested in studying the performance and effect of radiation on a Gallium Nitride High Electron Mobility Transistors semiconductor during a sounding rocket flight. The team will baseline their results by measuring the drain-source voltage/current throughout flight and will see the effects of radiation on IV characterizes. In addition, the team continues to refine a reusable inertial navigation and sensor measurement system from previous missions to extend to future RockSat-C missions. Finally, the team is creating a method for "plug and play" experiments for local students. This will enable the students to attach smaller experiments to the main mission to allow all units to function autonomously and without interference.
• University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
  The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee SEDS team is observing the effects of rocket flight in the lower atmosphere on bacterial DNA using multiple sensors to measure conditions during flight. In addition, the team will observe the effects that minimizing radiation has on DNA through the use of radiation shielding and test the effectiveness of different materials. The team believes the data will be useful in determining the survivability of microorganisms in space flight.
• West Virginia University, Morgantown
  The West Virginia University RockSat-C team is divided into two subgroups: Blue Team and Gold Team. The Blue Team is studying the correlation of the accepted Earth magnetic field models with a MLX90393 magnetometer and measuring the change in radiation throughout flight while calculating an estimated altitude based on the radiation level encountered. In addition, the team is estimating attitude and spin rate using an inertial measurement unit and receiving and saving GPS band radio frequencies on a HackRF Software Defined Radio for later comparison with the known flight GPS data from Gold Team. The Gold Team is using on-board videography to gauge the accuracy of coastal matching by comparing calculated position from collect images to measure GPS position. The team hopes to calculate rocket telemetry from the optical coastal matching from their GoPro and compare the results to the tracked telemetry results from the GPS.
  

[свернуть]

By Keith Koehler
NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.

Last Updated: June 10, 2019
Editor: Rob Garner

[tnt22]

RockOn/RockSat-C

Опубликовано локальное предупреждение мореплавателям

rockon_terrier_orion_pao_notmar.pdf - 146.2 KB, 2 стр, 2019-06-13 19:44:38 UTC

[tnt22]

RockOn/RockSat-C

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