NASA’s Daytime Dynamo Experiment Deploys Lithium to Study Global Ionospheric Communications Disruptions

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On June 24, 2013 a pair of daytime sounding rockets will launch from NASA Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) and deploy a chemical trail like the one deployed here from a sounding rocket at night. The chemical trail will help researchers track wind movement to determine how it affects the movement of charged particles in the atmosphere. All the colors in the sky shown here, the white and blue streaks, and the larger red blob overhead, are from the chemical trails. Credit: NASA See Rocket Visibility Maps below

Science and space aficionados are in for rare treat on June 24 when NASA launches a two-rocket salvo from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Va. on a mission to study how charged particles in the ionosphere can disrupt communication signals that impact our day to day lives.

Its a joint project between NASA and the Japanese Space Agency, or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.

The suborbital sounding rockets will blast off merely 15 seconds apart from a beach-side launch complex directly on Virginias Eastern shore on a science mission named the Daytime Dynamo.

An electric current called the dynamo, illustrated here, sweeps through Earths upper atmosphere.A pair of sounding rockets called Dynamo will launch on June 24, to study the current, which can disrupt Earths communication and navigation signals. Credit: USGS

The goal is to study the global electrical current called the dynamo, which sweeps through the ionosphere, a layer of charged particles that extends from about 30 to 600 miles above Earth.

Why should you care?

Because disruptions in the ionosphere can scramble radio wave signals for communications and navigations transmissions from senders to receivers and that can impact our every day lives.

The experiment involves launching a duo of suborbital rockets and also dispatching an airplane to collect airborne science measurements.

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NASA’s Daytime Dynamo Experiment Deploys Lithium to Study Global Ionospheric Communications Disruptions

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