2003-02-04
The SAGE III started in January 2003 and is a rocket campaign, where scientists wanted to perform validation measurements of the American instrument SAGE III onboard the Russian satellite METEOR 3M, by launching a minor rocket per day for three weeks. Measurements made from the NASA DC-8 aircraft and several balloons were compared to SAGE III instrument to prove the accuracy of satellite observations.
The objectives were mountain waves, probing of the cold pool, and a multilevel profile with a spiral descent. Since no sun runs were conducted, the solar instruments did not participate, but all other instruments operated throughout the flight. The aircraft flew at high northern latitudes to observe the sun as it descended from 20 deg to 12 deg. and from 6 deg. to -2 deg.
The flight concluded with a leg over the Table Mountain lidar facility for coincidence with an ozone balloon launch.
During the 30th of January was all together 5 Super Loki's launched. The last one was launched at 22.03 UTC and reached an altitude of nearly 96 km, the flight time was 15 minutes. Totally has 46 Superloki's and two Terrier Orion involved in the McWave rocket campaign been launched since the campaign started on the 15th of January.
Mountain waves were observed as predicted and clear air was available for the spiral descents.
While north of Iceland a PSC was observed and the airplane was maneuvered to pass underneath the cloud. Direct measurements were obtained with both lidar systems.
This event was noted by the mission science as a significant accomplishment.
Contact persons:
Mr L. Andersson, SSC Esrange, Project manager
Mr F. Schmidlin: NASA, Campaign Manager |