Data Analysis - Rocket

There have been many rocket experiments over the years carrying optical and in situ instruments to better understand the upper atmosphere, its energy inputs (solar EUV and precipitating particles), the ionosphere, excitation processes, and key model inputs such as electron impact cross sections. Dayglow, aurora, twilight, and nightglow rocket experiments have recorded data for key emission features from the near IR to the extreme ultraviolet. CPI and various scientific collaborators have performed data analyses for some of these experiments, specifically some key experiments that recorded dayglow and auroral emissions. Detailed fits to optical data have been made to investigate thermospheric composition, energy inputs, and cross sections. Examples of investigations utilizing CPI first principles models are Meier et al. [J. Geophys. Res., 85, 2177, 1980] (dayglow) and Strickland et al. [J. Geophys. Res., 105, 2461, 2000] (aurora). The latter paper addresses a particularly interesting experiment conducted by Aerospace Corporation scientists in which the rocket flew through a strongly disturbed region of the thermosphere. Included in the description of B3C, the first principles model used in the analysis, are model fits to the data that allow one to conclude that there is significantly less atomic oxygen than predicted from climatological models for undisturbed conditions.

Analyses like those cited above, while limited to a small geographical region, are valuable due to the altitude information contained in the data. Such information must be inferred from ground-based or satellite experiments (in the latter case when observing the Earth's disk).