UVPI imaging from the LACE satellite: The Strypi rocket plume
Abstract
The Ultraviolet Plume Instrument (UVPI) is a small plume-tracking instrument that was flown on the Naval Research Laboratory's Low-power Atmospheric Compensation Experiment (LACE) satellite. The UVPI plume camera has a narrow field of view (0.180 deg by 0.135 deg), and it observes sources through any of four filters with passbands of 195 to 295 nm, 220 to 320 nm, 235 to 350 nm, and 300 to 320 nm. The Strypi rocket was launched from Hawaii on 18 Feb. 1991. The second (Antares) and the third (Star 27) stages reached 110 km altitude and were successfully detected and tracked by the UVPI from a range of 450 to 550 km. The spectral radiance and spectral radiant intensities of the missile plumes were extracted from these images for the four passbands.
- Publication:
-
Naval Research Lab. Report
- Pub Date:
- September 1993
- Bibcode:
- 1993nrl..reptS....S
- Keywords:
-
- Imaging Techniques;
- Missile Tracking;
- Plumes;
- Radiant Flux Density;
- Ultraviolet Detectors;
- Ultraviolet Photography;
- Antares Rocket Vehicle;
- Missiles;
- Radiance;
- Ultraviolet Spectra;
- Spacecraft Design, Testing and Performance