Three scientific rockets at the university's Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks are now pointed skyward, loaded and waiting on their gigantic launchers for scientists to decide when conditions are right to fire them high above Earth.

The first to go are a pair of 16-foot long Orion sounding rockets that will be launched two hours apart from each other to collect meteor dust in the mesosphere as high up as 62 miles. The experiment, simply named DUST, is aimed at understanding the contribution of meteor dust to climate change.

The third experiment, CASCADES, is loaded on a much larger Black Brant XII rocket totaling about 70 feet long with its payload. It will carry the main payload and four sub payloads more than 400 miles above Earth where they will collect data on the upper-atmosphere effects that cause the aurora.

"It's probably one of the more complicated payloads we've done," said Poker Flat Range Manager Greg Walker.

When the rocket reaches the appropriate height, the five payloads will separate and transmit data back to the ground. The multiple payloads—which consist of several GPS receivers, a video camera and devices used to measure electric fields and energized particles—must rely on a mechanized spring-action system to separate successfully.

"This is what the NASA engineering team has been sweating bullets about for months," said Kristina Lynch, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College.

Lynch is the principal investigator for both the DUST and CASCADES missions. Along with about 20 NASA technicians and the personnel at Poker Flat, she will be awake all night waiting for an active aurora to occur between now and March 22.

"We're looking to quantify what makes the aurora dance," Lynch said. "There's variation in space as well as in time." The CASCADES team hopes to understand these variations using measurements from multiple points in space. There are many theories on how the aurora works and how it evolves, but experiments like CASCADES allow testing of those hypotheses.

"We understand a lot about the basics of how the aurora works," Lynch said. "What we don't understand is how it works as a system."

"Now we're on to the more interesting questions of how they evolve."

High up on a hill above the rest of the range, Lynch will give the go-ahead from a north-facing atrium in the T. Neil Davis Science Operations Center. The comfortable room is basically a glass bubble that resembles a greenhouse, but it has thick black curtains at the entrance to prevent any light from seeping in and reflecting off the glass.

"You can block this room off and watch the aurora without freezing your butt off," Lynch said.

The rockets themselves are housed on the launchers in foam boxes connected to industrial-size heaters. This is because the rockets must maintain a uniform temperature so the fuel burns evenly. Range personnel have been on "heater watch" for the past week making sure warm air is continuously blowing into the boxes.

High-altitude weather balloons and spinning anemometers mounted on a 260-foot meteorological tower measure the wind. This information is entered into a computer to make corrections for the launcher so the rocket stays within its designated flight zone and lands in the impact area, which extends about 345 miles north from Poker Flat to the Arctic Ocean.

The process is called wind weighting and it is crucial to a successful mission because, unlike guided missiles, sounding rockets are like a bow-and-arrow—it's just point and shoot.

"The (launch) window is dictated by the wind conditions," said NASA Project Manager Jack Vieira.

Once Lynch sees what she is looking for—clear and calm skies with an active aurora—she will notify the Blockhouse. The Blockhouse is the closest building to the launchers and built to withstand a direct impact from a malfunctioning rocket. Inside the concrete-reinforced building, buried under several feet of dirt, NASA technicians monitor the launch and Range personnel prepare for launch.

Operations Controller Kathe Rich begins a long checklist, notifying everyone from NORAD to the FAA, and Launch Officer Ray Martinez arms the rockets with two keys. When radar technicians have verified that the airspace is clear of any airplanes, the final countdown begins.

"Five… four…three…two…one…launch."

Martinez pushes the button that popped out when he inserted his keys. On the launch pad a jet of flame shoots up into the rocket motor, igniting the solid propellant. The fuel is shaped like a star, allowing it to maintain a constant surface area as it burns away. The rocket explodes out of the insulating box, blasting pieces of burning foam everywhere.

In the summer, Boy Scouts will help clean up the charred foam and tourists can take some home as a souvenir.

Poker Flat Research Range, named for Bret Harte's story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" and the nearby Poker Creek, is the only university-owned rocket range in the world. UAF's Geophysical Institute operates the range under contract to NASA, and staff work year-round readying the site for launch season.

Eleven rockets are scheduled for launch at Poker Flat in 2007.

Photo by Casey Grove/ Sun Star
A rocket sits inside a foam box in a launcher at Poker Flat Research Range.

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