. 24/7 Space News .
ROCKET SCIENCE
To Catch a Wave, Rocket Launches From Top of World
by Miles Hatfield for GSFC News
Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 29, 2019

CAPER-2 launches from the Andoya Space Center.

On Jan. 4, 2019, at 4:37 a.m. EST the CAPER-2 mission launched from the Andoya Space Center in Andenes, Norway, on a 4-stage Black Brant XII sounding rocket. Reaching an apogee of 480 miles high before splashing down in the Arctic Sea, the rocket flew through active aurora borealis, or northern lights, to study the waves that accelerate electrons into our atmosphere.

CAPER-2, short for Cusp Alfven and Plasma Electrodynamics Rocket-2, is a sounding rocket mission - a type of spacecraft that carries scientific instruments on short, targeted trips to space before falling back to Earth. In addition to their relatively low price tags and quick development time, sounding rockets are ideally suited for launching into transient events - like the sudden formation of the aurora borealis, or northern lights.

For CAPER-2 scientists, flying through an aurora provides a peek into a process as fundamental as it is complex: How do particles get accelerated throughout space? NASA studies this phenomenon in an effort to better understand not only the space environment surrounding Earth - and thus protect our technology in space from radiation - but also to help understand the very nature of stars and atmospheres throughout the solar system and beyond.

"Throughout the universe you have charged particles getting accelerated - in the Sun's atmosphere, in the solar wind, in the atmospheres of other planets, and in astrophysical objects," said Jim LaBelle, space physicist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and principal investigator for the CAPER-2 mission. "An aurora presents us with a local laboratory where we can observe these acceleration processes close at hand."

Technically, the CAPER-2 team is interested in what happens just before an aurora starts glowing. Electrons, pouring into our atmosphere from space, collide with atmospheric gases and trigger the aurora's glow. Somehow, they pick up speed along the way.

"By the time they crash into our atmosphere, these electrons are traveling over 10 times faster than they were before," said Doug Rowland, space physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who also studies particle acceleration. "We still don't understand the fundamental physics of how that happens."

The CAPER-2 team focused on a special kind of aurora that forms during the day. Unlike the nighttime aurora, the daytime aurora is triggered by electrons that stream in directly from the Sun - and we know far less about them.

"There's been a huge amount of research done on the regular nighttime aurora, but the daytime aurora is much less studied," said Craig Kletzing, space physicist at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and coinvestigator for the mission. "There are good indications that there are some similarities and there are also some differences."

The team is focusing on how the electrons that create daytime auroras are jostled around by waves, in ways that may or may not differ from nighttime auroras. Two kinds of waves are of special interest, and have opposite effects. Alfven waves, named after Swedish Nobel laureate Hannes Alfven who first predicted their existence in 1942, are thought to accelerate the electrons. These huge waves - measuring tens to hundreds of miles long from peak to peak - propagate along Earth's magnetic field lines, whipping electrons to and fro.

On the other side are Langmuir waves, which are generated by the electrons themselves - a process that steals some of the electrons' energy and slows them down. CAPER-2 will carry a high-resolution wave-particle correlator to measure them, the first sounding rocket mission to do so for the daytime aurora.

"This is very data-intensive," said LaBelle. "It's unique to sounding rockets to be able to look at this mechanism in this level of detail."

For the launch, the CAPER-2 team traveled to northern Norway, one of the few places that can put a rocket within range of the daytime aurora. Every day, northern Norway rotates under an opening in Earth's magnetic field known as the northern polar cusp, where particles from the Sun can funnel into our upper atmosphere.

Meeting the aurora right where they form is the best way to understand physical processes that are far too large to replicate in a lab.

"It's a kind of natural laboratory," LaBelle added. "We take our experiment to two different environments, where the variables are different, and then test the theory and answer the questions."

CAPER-2 was the third of nine sounding rocket missions taking part in the Grand Challenge Initiative - Cusp, an international campaign to explore the northern polar cusp. The VISIONS-2 and TRICE-2 missions launched in early December, and the fourth mission, G-CHASER, launched on Jan. 13. The window for AZURE, the next mission in the Grand Challenge Initiative - Cusp, opens on March 23, 2019.


Related Links
Sounding Rockets at NASA
Rocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com


Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly


paypal only
SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once


credit card or paypal


ROCKET SCIENCE
Countdown for launch of DRDO satellite starts
Chennai, India (IANS) Jan 24, 2019
The countdown for the flight on Thursday night of an Indian rocket carrying the Microsat R imaging satellite of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Kalamsat student satellite will begin later on Wednesday, an Indian space agency official said. "The countdown for the PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) rocket launch started Wednesday. "The countdown duration and its starting time, the time of rocket launch would be announced later," an official of the Indian Spa ... read more

Comment using your Disqus, Facebook, Google or Twitter login.



Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle

ROCKET SCIENCE
Blue Origin to make 10th flight test of space tourist rocket

Duration of UAE Astronaut's Mission on Board ISS Reduced to 8 Days

NASA Announces Updated Crew Assignment for Boeing Flight Test

China is growing crops on the far side of the moon

ROCKET SCIENCE
Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin rocket makes 10th flight test

ISRO successfully puts Kalamsat, Microsat-R satellites into orbit

Countdown for launch of DRDO satellite starts

SpaceX successfully test fires Falcon 9 rocket for Dragon 2

ROCKET SCIENCE
NASA's Opportunity Rover Logs 15 Years on Mars

Dust storm activity appears to pick up south of Opportunity

ExoMars software passes ESA Mars Yard driving test

Team selected by Canadian Space Agency to study Mars minerals

ROCKET SCIENCE
China to deepen lunar exploration: space expert

China launches Zhongxing-2D satellite

China welcomes world's scientists to collaborate in lunar exploration

In space, the US sees a rival in China

ROCKET SCIENCE
Thales Alenia Space and Maxar Consortium Achieve Major Milestone in Design Phase of Telesat's LEO Satellite Constellation

OneWeb's first satellites arrive in Kourou, French Guiana in preparation for the first OneWeb launch on February 19, 2019

Swarm Raises 25M to build world's lowest-cost satellite network

mu Space unveils plan to bid for space exploration projects

ROCKET SCIENCE
2D magnetism reaches a new milestone

Ball Aerospace tests electronically-steered antenna with Telesat's LEO Phase 1 satellite

Winning ideas for 3D printing on the Moon

Machine-learning code sorts through telescope data

ROCKET SCIENCE
Where Is Earth's Submoon?

Planetary collision that formed the Moon made life possible on Earth

Astronomers find star material could be building block of life

Double star system flips planet-forming disk into pole position

ROCKET SCIENCE
New Horizons' Newest and Best-Yet View of Ultima Thule

Juno's Latest Flyby of Jupiter Captures Two Massive Storms

Outer Solar System Orbits Not Likely Caused by "Planet Nine"

Scientist Anticipated "Snowman" Asteroid Appearance









The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.