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The total number of rockets launching from Poker Flat Research Range this season has recently been revised from thirteen to eleven. The reduction is due to the cancellation of a guided rocket project previously scheduled for April that will no longer launch from Poker Flat.

The two rockets in conjunction with the cancelled project were going to be used as part of a United States Missile Defense Agency (MDA)-lead federal experiment designed to study rocket dispersion patterns.

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From Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks, four NASA rockets launched into an aurora display over northern Alaska, starting at 3:29 a.m. Alaska Standard Time. Scientists hope to learn more about electrical heating of the thin atmosphere from about 60 to 120 miles above Earth’s surface with the launch of these rockets. The project is called JOULE II.

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Poker Flat Research Range will open its 2003 launch season today with a single-rocket mission designed to measure high-frequency wave signals in connection with the aurora. Known as HIBAR, the high bandwidth auroral rocket mission will have until February 8 to get the right weather and auroral conditions to launch a two-stage Terrier-Black Brant IX sounding rocket into the aurora at altitudes where the high-frequency waves form.

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A single, four-stage sounding rocket successfully launched into the aurora at 11:23 p.m. on Sunday, January 13 from Poker Flat Research Range. The rocket, a Black Brant XII, is part of an experiment designed to use Global Positioning System (GPS) radio signals to understand how oxygen emitted from the aurora triggers the expansion of the ionosphere into space, resulting in the formation of radiation belts.

Radiation belts around the earth limit the life of satellites and are a potential hazard for astronauts working outside a spacecraft.

First rocket experiment of 2009 launches from Poker Flat Research Range

For Immediate Release

For Immediate Release

Five NASA rockets are scheduled to launch from Poker Flat Research Range this month. The launch window opens today, Jan. 10, at 10 p.m. AST, and runs until 4 a.m. AST, each night through Wednesday, Jan. 27. The five rockets will launch in two separate campaigns.

Marc Lessard is the principal investigator of the first campaign, dubbed ROPA, short for Rocket Observation for Pulsating Aurora that will send a large Black Brant XII sounding rocket through pulsating aurora north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

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Students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are collaborating with students from Toyama Prefectural University and Tokai University in Japan to prepare a rocket scheduled to launch from Poker Flat Research Range on March 4th.

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Students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks are collaborating with students from Toyama Prefectural University and Tokai University in Japan to prepare a rocket scheduled to launch from Poker Flat Research Range on March 11. The launch was originally scheduled for March 4, but was delayed to allow time for the students to finetune their payload equipment.

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Students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have collaborated with students from Toyama Prefectural University and Tokai University in Japan to prepare a rocket that successfully launched from Poker Flat Research Range Monday afternoon at 12:06 p.m.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska—A total of eight National Aeronautics and Space Administration sounding rockets will launch from Poker Flat Research Range in 2009. The rocket season is split into two launch windows. The first launch window opens Jan. 10, and will remain open until Feb. 5, 2009.

The first window will see the launch of three rockets as part of two separate missions. One mission will aid scientists’ study of the ionosphere, while the other will gather data on the structure of auroral arcs.