NEW INFRASTRUCTURE AND EXTENDED SCIENTIFIC POSSIBILITIES USING THE SOUNDING ROCKET FACILITIES AT ANDOYA AND SVALBARD

摘要

Andoya Rocket Range (ARR) has an extensive record of successful launches of sounding rockets and scientific balloons since 1962. ARR provides complete services for launching, data acquisition, recovery and ground instrumentation support. The launching services are offered from sites on the mainland of Norway at 69° North and from the SvalRak Sounding Rocket Launch Facility at Svalbard (Ny-Alesund) at 78° North. Since the opening of the SvalRak facility in 1997, a number of sounding rockets have been launched from this facility; the last one was a three stage Black Brant X sounding rocket for NASA reaching a peak altitude of more than 781 km. The geographical location, infrastructure and exstensive network of ground-based instruments make the SvalRak launch facility ideal for studies of the dayside aurora, magnetospheric boundary layer processes and the magnetic cleft, cap and cusp. This paper will present the sounding rocket research possibilities offered by ARR from the two different locations in combination with the large network of groundbased instruments available in Northern Norway and Svalbard. New infrastructure and extended scientific possibilities will be emphasized.