Extreme Science: Launching Sounding Rockets from The Arctic

This winter, our scientists and engineers traveled to the

world’s northernmost civilian town to launch rockets equipped with cutting-edge

scientific instruments.

This is the beginning of a 14-month-long campaign to study a particular

region of Earth’s magnetic field — which means launching near the poles. What’s

it like to launch a science rocket in these extreme conditions?

Our planet is protected by a natural magnetic field that

deflects most of the particles that flow out from the Sun — the solar wind —

away from our atmosphere. But near the north and south poles, two oddities in

Earth’s magnetic field funnel these solar particles directly into our

atmosphere. These regions are the polar cusps, and it turns out they’re the

ideal spot for studying how our atmosphere interacts with space.

The scientists of the Grand Challenge Initiative — Cusp are

using sounding rockets to do their research. Sounding

rockets are suborbital rockets that launch to a few hundred miles in altitude,

spending a few minutes in space before falling back to Earth. That means

sounding rockets can carry sensitive instruments above our atmosphere to study

the Sun, other stars and even distant galaxies.

They also fly directly through some of the most interesting

regions of Earth’s atmosphere, and that’s what scientists are taking advantage

of for their Grand Challenge experiments.

One of the ideal rocket ranges for cusp science is in

Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, off the coast of Norway and within the Arctic circle.

Because of its far northward position, each morning Svalbard passes directly

under Earth’s magnetic cusp.

But launching in this extreme, remote environment puts another

set of challenges on the mission teams. These launches need to happen during

the winter, when Svalbard experiences 24/7 darkness because of Earth’s axial

tilt. The launch teams can go months without seeing the Sun.

Like for all rocket launches, the science teams have to wait

for the right weather conditions to launch. Because they’re studying upper

atmospheric processes, some of these teams also have to wait for other science

conditions, like active auroras. Auroras are created when charged particles

collide with Earth’s atmosphere — often triggered by solar storms or changes in

the solar wind — and they’re related to many of the upper-atmospheric processes

that scientists want to study near the magnetic cusp.

But even before launch, the extreme conditions make

launching rockets a tricky business — it’s so cold that the rockets must be

encased in styrofoam before launch to protect them from the low temperatures

and potential precipitation.

When all is finally ready, an alarm sounds throughout the

town of Ny-Ålesund to alert residents to the impending launch. And then it’s

up, up and away! This photo shows the launch of the twin VISIONS-2 sounding rockets on Dec.

7, 2018 from Ny-Ålesund.

These rockets are designed to break up during flight — so

after launch comes clean-up. The launch teams track where debris lands so that

they can retrieve the pieces later.

The

next launch of the Grand Challenge Initiative is AZURE, launching from Andøya

Space Center in Norway in April 2019.

 For even more about what it’s like to launch science rockets

in extreme conditions, check out one scientist’s notes from the field: https://go.nasa.gov/2QzyjR4

For updates on the Grand Challenge Initiative and other

sounding rocket flights, visit nasa.gov/soundingrockets or follow along with NASA Wallops and NASA

heliophysics on Twitter and Facebook.

@NASA_Wallops | NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility | @NASASun | NASA Sun Science