One of the three rockets for the TOMEX+ mission sits on a launcher at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Photo by Danielle Johnson/NASA
Aug. 20 (UPI) — NASA is planning to launch TOMEX+ rocket mission to study the turbulence where Earth’s atmosphere ends and outer space begins sometime over the next two weeks.
The earliest the agency expects to launch the three sounding rockets is Saturday, with the launch window closing Sept. 3, NASA announced Wednesday. The launch window has been repeatedly pushed back, this time due to high sea states in the rocket recovery area from Hurricane Erin.
Sounding rockets are those that can be aimed to reach the Earth’s mesopause, an area of the atmosphere that’s too high for weather balloons and too low for traditional satellites to reach.
The mesosphere is the coldest layer of Earth’s atmosphere and is the place where weather patterns on the planet can transfer energy into space, creating turbulence that can affect satellites.
NASA will use three sounding rockets to carry out the study, the first two launching within about a minute of each other. They will release vapor that will help scientists on the ground map wind patterns in the mesosphere.
The third rocket will then use a lidar — light detection and ranging — device to send out pulses of light to detect sodium atoms in the mesosphere. The sodium comes from tiny grains of dust that enter the Earth’s atmosphere from space.
The lidar will allow scientists to further map the mesosphere’s density and motion over time.
“Together, the TOMEX+ payloads will provide the clearest 3D view yet of turbulence at the edge of space, improving our understanding of high-altitude cloud formation, satellite drag and even atmospheric processes on other planets,” NASA said in a blog post on the project.
NASA will launch the rockets from Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. The project is led by Jim Clemmons, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Hampshire.