NASA Rocket Launch to Study Atmosphere's Electrical Currents Delayed

NASA officials at Wallops Island Flight Facility decided to postpone the launch of two rockets on June 24 due to high cirrus clouds.

The next attempt will be held on June 25, with a time window between 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m EDT.

Of those two rockets, the one to be launched first is a single-stage Black Brant V capable of collecting data on the neutral and charged particles through which it travels.

The second rocket, which will follow 15 seconds after the first, is a two-stage Terrier-Improved Orion that will shoot out a long trail of lithium gas to track how the upper atmospheric wind varies altitude.

These winds are believed to be the drivers of the global electrical current called the dynamo, which sweeps through the ionosphere.

Located between 30 and 600 miles above the Earth, the ionosphere plays a key role in the day-to-day life of individuals throughout the globe. Radio waves, for example, bounce off it as they travel from sender to receiver. Communication satellites travel through it as well and in either case, a disruption of the ionosphere can mean a disruption in these signals.

"The dynamo further south at the magnetic equator is particularly strong and is called the equatorial electrojet," said Robert Pfaff, the principle investigator for the Dynamo rocket at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The mid-latitude dynamo is less understood and is actually more complex, since here Earth's magnetic field is at an angle."

The simple picture of the dynamo, according to Pfaff, includes two giant circles of current - one in the northern hemisphere and the other in the south.

"At its most basic, the electric current is caused simply because the Sun heats the upper atmosphere during the day, causing the gas to rise up, which in turn causes movement - a wind," he explained. "The neutral wind pushes the heavier charged particles and that drives an electric current. So both the neutral and the charged material must be understood."

Such a simple picture, however, is not a complete picture, Pfaff warns, adding that activity on the Sun can affect the Earth's magnetic fields sometimes causing significant variation in the ionosphere.

Additionally, the lower parts of the ionosphere contain different types of ions, which collide with the neutral gases in different ways, depending o their size.

But while some of these effects have been studied before in the mid-latitudes, no one has studied the electromagnetic effects in this region simultaneously with the neutral winds, according to Pfaff.

Ultimately, not only will a clearer understanding of the dynamics of the ionosphere currents help to understand how and perhaps even predict when the ionosphere can disturb radio signals, it can shed light on other processes believed to occur on other planets throughout the solar system, according to NASA officials.

"The manner in which neutral and ionized gases interact is a fundamental part of nature," said Pfaff. "There could very well be a dynamo on other planets. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are all huge planets with huge atmospheres and huge magnetic fields. They could be setting up dynamo currents galore."