Dr. Barjatya in front of the NASA MTeX rocket that was loaded on the rail at Poker Flat Rocket Range in Alaska
Dr. Barjatya in front of the NASA MTeX rocket that was loaded on the rail at Poker Flat Rocket Range in Alaska.

SAIL is actively involved with several sounding rocket missions. Sounding rockets are the only means of investigating the Earth’s mesosphere (60-90 km) and the lower thermosphere (90-250 km). Sounding rockets can also be used to investigate higher altitudes (250-1200 km) and are launched whenever there is an active phenomenon underway as observed by ground-based observations. In the United States, scientific sounding rockets missions are managed by the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, and in Germany, they are managed by the DLR MORABA. Two of SAIL’s recent sounding rocket projects were a NASA MTeX mission and a DLR WADIS mission.

Brief introductions and a few pictures for each of these missions are provided in the subpages linked above.