Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!yale!cmcl2!ccnysci!patth From: patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring) Newsgroups: sci.space Subject: NASA : Artificial Cloud Experiment Message-ID: <1706@ccnysci.UUCP> Date: 24 Apr 89 17:46:59 GMT Reply-To: patth@ccnysci.UUCP (Patt Haring) Organization: City College Of New York Lines: 98 Ported to UseNET from UNITEX Network 201-795-0733 via Rutgers FidoGATEway *NASA: ARTIFICIAL CLOUD EXPERIMENT Paula Cleggett-Haleim Headquarters, Washington, D.C. (Phone: 202/453-1548) April 20, 1989 Joyce B. Milliner GSFC/Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. (Phone: 804/824-1579) MULTI-COLORED, ARTIFICIAL CLOUD TO BE VISIBLE ALONG EAST COAST A rocketborne scientific experiment, programmed to create an artificial cloud at high altitudes, is scheduled for launch Sunday evening, April 23, from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore. A three-stage suborbital rocket, the Black-Brant X will carry two canisters of barium to be ejected 90 seconds apart at an altitude of about 300 statute miles. The barium will create an artificial greenish-purple cloud which can be visible for approximately 20 minutes to residents, using binoculars, along the U.S. East Coast from Canada to Florida and as far west as Ohio. The objective of this launch is to investigate Nobel prize winner Dr. Hannes Alfven's critical velocity effect theory, which has been used to explain details in the early formation of the solar system. In 1954, Alfven, University of California, San Diego, proposed that if an element in a nearly neutral plasma became ionized when it attained a flow velocity which depended on its ionization potential, then several facets of the structure of the solar system could be explained. This could explain the differing chemical compositions of the planets and whether they were formed during a gaseous or plasma transition. The launch is scheduled about 9:40 p.m. EDT from Wallops Island, Va., during a launch window that opens April 23 and extends through May 6. Since the data will be obtained optically, clear weather conditions are required at the ground observing sites in Virginia, Massachusetts and North Carolina. Delays could occur due to operational constraints or cloud cover at the ground-based camera sites so the launch will be scheduled on a day-to-day basis. The two canisters of barium will be ejected and detonated -- one as the payload ascends and one as it descends -- thus creating two separate jets of gas near the apogee altitude of 300 miles. formation of the solar system. Sensors on-board the payload will record characteristics of the heated plasma in the neutral jet. Researchers from the ground, by using low-light-level television cameras, will determine injection extent, velocity profile and percentage of ionization. Radar will measure ionospheric parameters prior to and during the experiments. Dr. Roy Torbert, principal investigator from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, said, "We conducted a similar flight from Wallops in 1986. However, this launch will allow for a higher ambient plasma than occurred during the early morning flight in 1986." Other researchers include Gerhard Haerendel and Arnoldo Valenzuela, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Munich, West Germany; Gene Wescott and Hans Nielson, University of Alaska-Fairbanks; Jason Providakes and Mike Kelley, Cornell University; John Foster, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kay Baker, Utah State University; Fritz Primdahl, Danish Space Research Institute; and C.G. Falthammar and V. Brenning, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden. The NASA Wallops payload manager is Paul Buchanan and project engineer is Debra Frostrom. This scientific mission is part of the overall NASA Sounding Rocket Program managed at Wallops. This program consists of approximately 40 sounding rockets launched each year from various worldwide locations. * Origin: UNITEX --> Crime Stoppers Against the New Age Hustle (1:107/501) -- unitex - via FidoNet node 1:107/520 UUCP: ...!rutgers!rubbs!unitex ARPA: unitex@rubbs.FIDONET.ORG -- Patt Haring rutgers!cmcl2!ccnysci!patth patth@ccnysci.BITNET