Скачать или смотреть GIRAFF/BaDASS Missions at Poker Flat Research Range

Two NASA rockets successfully launched from Poker Flat Research Range this month in search of answers about forms of rapid auroral behavior. The second of those launched Saturday, the final day of the two-week launch period when acceptable conditions returned.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute owns Poker Flat and operates it under a contract with NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, which is part of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

A third rocket, with a mission of researching another type of auroral activity, was not launched because the correct science conditions did not materialize.

The two rockets that did launch were for the Ground Imaging to Rocket investigation of Auroral Fast Features mission, led by principal investigator Robert Michell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

The first in the rocket tandem launched at 10:07 p.m. Feb. 1. The second launched at 11:35 p.m. Feb. 8.

Poker Flat will also be the site of a three-rocket launch in late March. That mission, led by UAF professor Mark Conde, will study the density, wind and composition perturbations that occur in Earth's far upper atmosphere during auroral substorms.

Video produced by Bryan Whitten and Eric Marshall/UAF Geophysical Institute

More information:

https://www.gi.alaska.edu/news/first-...