The Anomalous Transport Rocket Experiment (ATREX) is a

heliophysics Heliophysics (from the prefix "wikt:helio-, helio", from Attic Greek ''hḗlios'', meaning Sun, and the noun "physics": the science of matter and energy and their interactions) is the physics of the Sun and its connection with the Solar System. ...

experiment that was conducted by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C., in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959, as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC ...

out of the

Wallops Flight Facility Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) is a rocket launch site on Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, United States, just east of the Delmarva Peninsula and approximately north-northeast of Norfolk, VA, Norfolk. The facility is operated ...

located on the

Eastern Shore of Virginia The Eastern Shore of Virginia is the easternmost region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It consists of two counties (Accomack County, Virginia, Accomack and Northampton County, Virginia, Northam ...

. The mission entailed the use of 5

sounding rockets A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital flight ...

launched closely in time together, each of which released a chemical tracer into the high-altitude jet stream. The rocket launches were widely visible to residents of the Eastern seaboard from as far north as New York to as far south as North Carolina, while the tracers were visible throughout the Eastern seaboard. ATREX principal investigator Miguel Larsen said of the chemical tracer release: "They occur in the middle of the night, and they glow, It's not extremely bright, but it's definitely visible." The mission operating window was set from March 14 to April 3, 2012, with launch windows expected to occur between 11:00 pm and 6:30 am the following morning, local time. The first launch attempt was cancelled due to internal radio frequency interference on one of the instrumented payloads. The malfunction was detected during preparations for the launches during the evening of March 14. Five other launch attempts were subsequently cancelled, primarily due to weather. The launch attempt that took place on the evening of March 20–21 reached T-15 minutes before being put on hold and subsequently canceled due to an equipment problem and weather conditions. The launch took place just before the launch window closed for the mission at 5 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, March 27, 2012.

Mission details

The mission used two Terrier Improved Malemute, two Terrier Improved Orion, and one

Terrier Oriole Terrier Oriole is an unguided two-stage rocket system which is primarily used by the Goddard Space Flight Center out of the Wallops Flight Facility as a sounding rocket. The system uses a Terrier first-stage booster attached to an Oriole second-st ...

. The rockets were launched within a span of 5 minutes and 20 seconds, with one rocket launched every 80 seconds. All five released their chemical tracer payload, which is made up of trimethyl aluminum, at roughly the same time while at slightly different altitudes. Two of the rockets also carried instruments in order to measure atmospheric pressure and temperature, while three different cameras located in North Carolina, New Jersey, and Wallops Flight Facility, tracked the tracers in order to measure how quickly they move away from each other.

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

ATREX mission site

Wallops Flight Facility
– Launch Webcast site for the mission.
ATREX KMZ File for Google Earth
– Keyhole Markup Language (KML) file for use with

Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...

. NASA programs Articles containing video clips 2012 in spaceflight