PMWE-1 sounding rocket campaign
Abstract
Polar Mesosphere Winter Echoes (PMWE) are relatively strong coherent radar returns from _55-85 km altitudes, which primarily occur in the winter season at high latitudes. PMWE are also observed at mid-latitudes, although very much more rarely. Because of their extremely low occurrence rate, they are still poorly investigated. Consequently, the origin of these echoes is still under debate.Currently the most accepted explanation of PMWE formation mechanism suggests that the neutral air turbulence plays the key role. However, there are some features, which need additional players to explain this phenomenon. The most important among them is the background electron density, which is needed to make PMWE detectable for the radars. This explains why PMWE more often occur during daytime when the solar radiation ionizes the Earth's atmosphere. Another suggested important player in the formation of PMWE are the dust particles or the so-called Meteor Smoke Particles (MSP). Their importance was suggested by interpretation of the PMWE observations with the European Incoherent Scatter radar (EISCAT).The PMWE sounding rocket mission aims at in situ measuring the key parameters that may explain the formation mechanism of the winter radar echoes. The Middle atmosphere ALOMAR Radar System (MAARSY) is capable of measuring the echoes along the rocket's flight path and is used to define launch criteria. Two instrumented sounding rockets will be launched from the Andøya Space Center (ASC) in northern Norway during the first PMWE campaign scheduled for beginning of April 2018.In this paper we will present the first results of the PMWE-1 sounding rocket campaign.
- Publication:
-
42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- July 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018cosp...42E3272S