Paula Cleggett-Haleim
Headquarters, Washington, D.C. 20546                 July 6, 1990
(Phone:  202/453-1547)
Keith Koehler
Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.
(Phone:  804/824-1579)
RELEASE:  90-93
NASA TO CONDUCT SOUNDING ROCKET CAMPAIGN IN KWAJALEIN
     NASA will conduct a sounding rocket campaign in the South 
Pacific over the summer to better understand the Earth's 
ionosphere in the equatorial regions and the response of the 
ionosphere to electric fields and plasma cloud injections.  
Several of the rocket experiments will complement a satellite 
launch planned for this month.
     From July 10 through Aug. 23, the Wallops Flight Facility 
(WFF), Wallops Island, Va., of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center 
(GSFC), Greenbelt, Md., will launch seven suborbital sounding 
rockets from the Roi-Namur launch facility in the Kwajalein Atoll 
in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.
     Four of these sounding rocket experiments will complement 
the science objectives of the Combined Release and Radiation 
Effects Satellite (CRRES), scheduled for launch from the Cape 
Canaveral Air Force Station on July 17.  CRRES is a joint 
NASA/U.S. Air Force mission that will study the Earth's magnetic 
field and the effect of space radiation on advanced 
electronics.  The remaining three sounding rocket experiments 
comprise the Equatorial Ionospheric Studies (EQUIS) program.
     The sounding rockets will carry experiments designed to 
study a region of the ionosphere from 155 to 372 miles above the 
Earth.  The experiments will aid scientists in understanding the 
chemistry and spatial structures of the ionosphere and the 
fundamental physics of ionosphere disturbances and turbulence in 
the equatorial regions.
     The campaign scientist is Dr. Michael Mendillo of Boston 
University, and the campaign manager is Jay F. Brown of WFF.  
Seventy-two people from Wallops and the science community will be 
involved in the campaign.
     The first series of two experiments, involving four rockets, 
is part of the CRRES program.  These rockets will be launched 
between July 20 and July 23 and between Aug. 10 and Aug. 23 in 
launch windows that extend from sunset to two hours after 
sunset.  Each experiment will consist of two Taurus-Nike-Tomahawk 
sounding rocket launches.
     In each pair, the first rocket's payload will release 75 
pounds of sulfurhexaflouride between 215 and 280 miles 
altitude.  The chemical cloud will not be visible to the eye but 
will be detectable by low-light-level cameras.  The second rocket 
payload of each pair is instrumented to measure the disturbances 
produced by the chemical release in the ionosphere.  The rocket 
will be launched eight to 25 minutes after the first rocket, 
depending on the drift of the chemical cloud.  Ground-based 
radars and optical sensors also will be used from sites on 
Kwajalein, Wake Island, and Kosrae, Federated States of 
Micronesia.  For the CRRES experiments, Dr. Mendillo is the 
principal investigator and Brown is the payload manager.
     The EQUIS component of the Kwajalein Campaign involves three 
rocket launches.  The first two of these experiments (called 
"Spread F") will occur between July 25 and Aug. 8.  The launch 
window is from one hour before sunset until midnight.  Two 
Terrier-Malemute sounding rockets will carry these payloads to 
300 miles altitude.
     The Spread-F payloads are identical and designed to measure 
the electric fields and spatial structures in the ionosphere.  
The rockets will launch during ionospheric disturbances that 
often occur in the equatorial regions.  The principal 
investigators for these experiments are Dr. Robert F. Pfaff, Jr. 
of GSFC and Professor Michael C. Kelly, Cornell University.  The 
payload manager for both rockets is Geoff Bland of WFF.
     The third EQUIS experiment, the Negative Ion and Cation 
Release Experiment (NICARE) will be launched on a Black Brant IX 
sounding rocket between Aug. 9 and Aug. 22.  The launch window 
runs for 60 seconds shortly after dusk.
     The NICARE payload will eject 24.5 pounds of a barium-
thermite mixture at about 215 miles altitude during its ascent 
and will release 65 pounds of sulfurhexaflouride at 210 miles 
during its descent.  The barium-thermite mixture will produce a 
blue-green cloud that may be visible as far as 600 miles from 
Kwajalein.  The second chemical will not be visible to the eye, 
but will be detectable by sensitive ground-based optical systems. 
     The NICARE instruments will measure the effects the 
chemicals have on the ionosphere.  Additional data will be 
obtained from ground-based observation sites within the Marshall 
Islands.  The principal investigator for the experiment is Dr. 
Paul Bernhardt from the Naval Research Laboratory and the payload 
manager is Phil Eberspeaker from WFF. 
     The Kwajalein campaign is part of the overall NASA Sounding 
Rocket program, which is managed at WFF.  The program consists of 
approximately 30 sounding rockets launched each year from various 
worldwide locations.  The overall CRRES program is managed by the 
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., for NASA's Office 
of Space Science and Applications.
                             - end -
     EDITORS NOTE:  Available to the media only are three photos 
available in either Color or Black and White of CRRES/EQUIS 
sounding rocket and payload processing and testing:
     WI-90-255-1    Terrier-Malemute nose cone deployment test.
     WI-90-279-9    Terrier-Malemute telemetry section assembly.
     WI-90-279-4    Black Brant IX spin/balance test.
     Material can be obtained by calling Wallops Flight Facility 
Public Affairs Office,  804/824-1579.
     NASA news releases and other NASA information is available 
electronically on CompuServe and GEnie, the General Electric 
Network for Information Exchange.  For information on CompuServe, 
call 1-800-848-8199 and ask for representative 176.  For 
information on GEnie, call 1-800-638-9636.