SwRI suborbital science payload gets the goods on Mercury, searches for Vulcanoids

SpaceRef.com ^ | January 23, 2004 | SwRI

[MikeD]

A new major scientific payload flew in space last week after launching aboard a NASA suborbital Black Brant rocket. The payload, consisting of a telescope/spectrometer combination and an image-intensified imaging system, successfully explored the ultraviolet spectrum of the planet Mercury and also searched for the long-sought belt of small bodies called Vulcanoids that may lie even closer to the Sun than Mercury. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) provided the payload and is responsible for data analysis.

"The rocket flew a textbook flight and got the goods on our calibration star (Zeta Ophiuchus), Mercury and the Moon -- everything in the flight plan," says Dr. Alan Stern, mission principal investigator and director of the SwRI Space Studies Department. "The secondary payload, the so-called VULCAM (Vulcanoid camera) imager, also worked like a champ, searching for Vulcanoids while the spectrograph studied Mercury itself."

The payload's main instrument is a large (almost 500 pound), highly sensitive, ultraviolet spectrograph designed to observe objects too close to the Sun for the Hubble Space Telescope and other orbital instruments to view. The new SwRI instrument has been dubbed "Big Dog" by its inventors, owing to the large size of the payload.

"We built Big Dog specifically to fill a niche -- exploring objects in the deep inner solar system," explains SwRI's Dr. David Slater, project scientist for the instrument and leader of the field team that took the payload to White Sands for the launch preparations and flight. "This flight proves we can now examine objects -- like Venus, Mercury and bright comets close to the Sun -- that are normally lost in the Sun's glare to orbiting telescopes, on a routine basis. This is a real asset for planetary astronomy and for certain kinds of astrophysics as well."

VULCAM scientist Dr. Dan Durda, also of SwRI, added, "VULCAM is a derivative of an imaging instrument we have flown many times on F-18 aircraft, but which has the potential to become an even more powerful tool for searching for Vulcanoids from 260+ kilometer (165+ mile) altitudes that NASA suborbital missions can reach. VULCAM also performed flawlessly."

"Never before in history has it been possible to obtain an ultraviolet spectrum of Mercury," says Stern. "With the data gathered last week, we expect to reveal new details about this mysterious inner planet's surface composition and, hopefully, to help the upcoming NASA MESSENGER mission to Mercury plan its ultraviolet observations."

Primary funding for this mission came from NASA, with supplemental support from The Planetary Society. The NASA Wallops Island Flight Facility managed the mission and provided both the launch vehicle and the pointing, telemetry and recovery systems required to support the flight. The Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy at the University of Colorado at Boulder also collaborated on the mission.

Vulcanoids are a hypothesized population of small asteroids that is exceedingly difficult to observe from the ground because of its proximity to the Sun. Researchers have made previous ground-based searches for Vulcanoids during total solar eclipses, during the brief twilight period after sunset before the Vulcanoids themselves set or just before sunrise after the Vulcanoids have peaked above the horizon.

Editors: An image of the rocket is available at www.swri.org/press/bdpr.htm.

More information on the Wallops Island Flight Facility is available at www.wff.nasa.gov, the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy is at casa.colorado.edu, the MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging) mission is at messenger.jhuapl.edu and The Planetary Society is at www.planetary.org.

[MikeD]

This is the news release about "my" sounding rocket launch from last week. There were a lot of problems pre-launch, but the flight worked perfectly. I was one of three field team members, along with Dave Slater (quoted in the article) and Norm Pelletier.

Here is a picture of the rocket:

MD

[MikeD]

PING!

[Viking2002]

Brother, as a computer support spacialist, I envy you. I've always been a big supporter of the space program, and would love to help staff a technical team. And I could live with Wallops Island as an office - I've been debating the idea of the wife and I moving to the Northern Neck, and possibly commuting.......

[RightWhale]

That's your rocket, eh? Glad it went well.

A lot of Black Brandts have been launched from here, mostly to study the aurora. I had a chunk of rocket fuel for a while but tossed it away, actually into the woodstove.

[MikeD]

I haven't been to Wallops yet, but my boss has. The biggest problem with launching from Wallops is you can't recover the payload. We like to refurbish & refly to save money. Sharks can't do good science.

MD

[MikeD]

Alan says one of his first rockets was launched from Alaska. Unfortunately, recovery has to wait for summer, so you just have to pray your payload doesn't land in a lake.

We used to be able to snag the S-19 guidance fins during recovery, but it seems the Army pilots snag them first these days. My only prize so far is a broken screw from the last launch...

MD

[Viking2002]

I wonder what the cost would be to fit the payloads and/or launch vehicles with some sort of recovery system.....it seems to me that the cost of R&D and implementation would be offset pretty quick, if you could recover the hardware.

[RightWhale]

There's plenty of souvenirs laying around Poker Flat from rockets that did unusual things like burning through the side and flying like pinwheels, stuff like that. Of course, such souvenirs aren't what many people would want to display over the mantlepiece.

[RightWhale]

There was an accident here a couple decades ago that took most of the fun out of doing these launches. The rocket sheared its bolts, 4 I think, and fell from the launch tower while the crew was working underneath. It's a serious business.

[Leroy S. Mort]

"Highly illogical, Captain. The Vulcanoids have been circling Uranus for eons."

[MikeD]

There's talk about implementing some kind of floatation device, especially with some of the new boosters that will keep payloads aloft for 30 minutes. Who knows. The whole program is in trouble after the new re-alignment.

MD

[MikeD]

Yikes -- were people working on it while it was vertical? I know we have to clear the pad at WSMR anytime we go vertical -- we're usually horizontal until right before launch. I've heard horror stories of boosters spontaneously igniting -- that's why we're really careful with grounding and have to clear the pad when anything (like a vacuum pump) is turned on.

Dangerous work, to be sure, but I love doing my part.

MD

[RightWhale]

Yes. Crew of four. Two survived.

[RadioAstronomer]

Whooohooo! Sorry for taking so long to respond. :-( Busy on the Mars threads. Sigh.

This is fantastic. A huge congratulations to you. :-)

Michael

[MikeD]

Thanks. I haven't been busy responding to Mars threads, just reading. We're thinking about using Flash memory on our next sounding rocket flight. Of course, there's a big difference between six months of data and five minutes...

MD