Dust Darts Sounding Rocket
The purpose of the Dust Darts mission is to investigate mesospheric meteoric dust layers near 90 km altitude. The mission consists of seven small Viper-IIIA/10D Dart payloads carrying charged dust detectors. The multiple launches will allow measurements to be made at different times with identical instrumentation.
The launches will be coordinated with ground support from Cornell meteor radar and University of Alaska LIDAR measurements.
Dust Darts are scheduled for launch in November 2000 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico and in March 2001 from Poker Flat Range, Alaska.
Instrumentation:
University of New Hampshire:
Utah State University:
- GPS reciever
- E-field probes
- DC probe
- Capacitance probe
Principal Investigator:
- Kristina Lynch /UNH (Now Dartmouth College)
Co-Investigators:
- James Ulwick/ Utah State University
- Mike Kelley / Cornell University
- Richard Collins / University of Alaska