SAMPLER 41.024 and 41.025

DAYTONA BEACH, FL, - July, 2003 - A research team from the Atmospheric Physics Research Lab (APRL) under the direction of Dr. Peter Erdman, a professor from the Physical Sciences Department at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, successfully launched a pair of NASA funded sounding rockets from White Sands Missile Range. The rockets, each 35 feet long and weighing 3700 lbs, lifted off in the early morning hours on July 15th, 2003.

After last year's successful launch the payloads were refurbished and flown again. This regular launch schedule is part of a multi-year mission to study greenhouse gases in the upper atmosphere. The team consists of a group of undergraduate students from the engineering physics program and graduate students from the masters of space sciences program.

The primary payload, SAMPLER, is a cryogenic whole air sampler. Three vacuum cylinders are evacuated out to a trillionth of an atmosphere before flight. A cold finger within each cylinder is cooled via a special refrigerator to a few degrees above absolute zero (approximately 10 Kelvin or -263 degrees Celsius.) When the rocket reaches a certain altitude the valves are opened and the atmospheric sample is frozen to the finger. This allows the SAMPLER payload to take a snapshot of the contents of the upper atmosphere for further research.

The primary purpose of these flights is to characterize the CO2 abundance between 50km and 100km above the surface of the Earth. The results from this launch will contribute directly to our knowledge of atmospheric energetics and atmospheric dynamics in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere. The launch date was chosen to coordinate with the TIMED satellite upon which the SABER instrument is performing similar measurements remotely.

The secondary payload, VIRGO, is a thesis project for Damon Burke, a graduate student at Embry Riddle. VIRGO was originally designed by Burke's senior design team but has undergone major redesigning to provide more useful data. A prior sounding rocket launched by another group found a vehicle glow that interfered with their measurements and hypothesized it to be an atomic oxygen reaction with the vehicle's skin. VIRGO's main purpose is to gain more knowledge about this vehicle glow. Burke hopes that his data will provide unique data to other scientists interested in measurements at this altitude.

Each of the rockets carried a SAMPLER and a VIRGO section. A pair of NASA high performance rockets were used to boost each payload into space. The project was a joint effort between Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. All instrument design and building was done in the Atmospheric Physics Research Lab.