DART

Sounding rockets provide the means of in situ measurements in the ionosphere/lower thermosphere region. All available sounding rockets are rather large.

A novel small sounding rocket is developed by a company in the Netherlands with a promise of enabling cost-efficient launches with miniaturized payloads.

The company has received support for first instrumented launch of the rocket at Esrange.Our group has developed a miniature payload to fit the new rocket.

The instrumented launches will carry two payloads for measuring the parameters of plasma in the E-region of the ionosphere.

One payload uses Langmuir probes to derive the plasma parameters from their current-voltage characteristics, while the other uses high frequency receiver in combination with ground based transmitters, to derive plasma parameters from the wave propagation.We request travel funds to support the launch campaign at Esrange, which will open up the opportunities for future use of the rocket/payload combinations.