History
In the early 1960's, Neil Davis of the Geophysical Institute decided to create a research rocket facility in Alaska with the unique advantage of being located near a permanent staff of university space physics scientists determined to study the aurora. The facility is located just to the south of the zone where most auroras occur.
Basic facilities completed in 1972 were joined two years later by a geophysical observatory to house riometers, magnetometers, and other instruments used in routine experiments, along with all-sky cameras and meridian scanning photometers to support rocket launches. The range now undergoes continual improvement.
Space science research on the Northern Lights began at the University of Alaska in the 1920's.
After the Geophysical Institute was established by Congress in 1946, scientists became interested in using sounding rockets as a major means of studying the aurora.
Davis' proposed range competed with a nearly identical facility: a $30M joint American-Canadian venture in the 1950's at on the shores of Hudson Bay in Fort Churchill, Canada. The Fort Churchill range was positioned inside the auroral zone and limited research to one kind of aurora.
In 1968 a minimal expeditionary rocket range was built in Alaska to support the launch of six Department of Defense barium-release rockets. The Geophysical Institute secured a 25-year lease from the State of Alaska on about 5,000 acres of land to build the site, now known as Poker Flat Research Range.
Federal crews wanted to shut down the rocket range shortly after they completed their barium-release experiments; Davis had other plans. He agreed to provide necessary ground-based observations of the chemical releases from various locations if he could launch his own NASA-sponsored, auroral zone rocket from PFRR, rather than from Fort Churchill. The federal crews agreed, and Davis' rocket became the first civilian agency launch from the new range, establishing a precedent.
All seven rockets were successful! PFRR was launched into existence. Geophysical Institute scientists managed the range on a shoestring budget for years until the facility proved both workable and scientifically useful. In 1970 13 sounding rocket launches were scheduled. New construction began and the range received staff and support instrumentation.
Increasing sophistication of the experiments flown demanded that range facilities improve accordingly. The range incorporates rocket assembly and launching capabilities, telemetry receiving stations, and ground-based diagnostics needed for launch decisions concerning space, aeronomy, and atmospheric science experiments. Ground-based instrumentation allows monitoring of auroral activity, magnetic storms, ionospheric perturbations and other space disturbances in real-time.
Technology continues to change at a rapid rate; various improvements to the range are underway. Upgrades enable the range to handle increasingly complex missions and payloads researchers need to study the complicated relationships between the different regions of the atmosphere, earth's magnetic field, and solar radiation.
