Rockets For Use In Upper Atmosphere Research

IENTIFIERS: Nike Cajun, Strongarm. The atmospheric and geophysical properties of theATMOSPHERE ABOVE 100 KM AND THEIR METHODS OF MEASUREMENT ARE DISCUSSED, WITH PARTICULAR EMPHASIS ON THE INTERACTION OF THE SOUNDING VEHICLE WITH THE PROPERTIES BEING MEASURED. The economics of rocket sounding including considerations of trajectories, altitudes, vehicle speed and geographical location are discussed.

Sounding rockets provided the first means to carry instruments to the outermost reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. They were, indeeed, our first space vehicles. As Mr. Corliss relates in this history, in this day of satellites and deep space probes, sounding rockets remain as important to space science as ever, furnishing our most powerful means for obtaining vertical profiles of atmospheric properties. NASA continues to depend on sounding rockets for research in astronomy, meteorology, ionospheric physics, exploratory astronomy, and other disciplines.