Don Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC October 20, 1995 (Phone: 202/358-1547) Keith Koehler Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA (Phone: 804/824-1579) RELEASE: 95-187 NASA ROCKETS TO BE LAUNCHED IN AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK A series of NASA sounding rocket experiments will begin today from the Australian Outback to study the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the closest galaxy next to our own Milky Way. Six sounding rocket experiments are scheduled for launch from the Woomera Instrumented Range in South Australia through November, carrying instruments to gather information on hot gases, stars, interstellar gas and dust particles, which are the basic building blocks of planets in our neighboring galaxy. In addition, the 0-minute rocket flights, from 150 to 200 miles altitude, will provide invaluable information on new detection technologies which are being incorporated into astronomy satellites. The astronomical objects will be viewed by telescopes in the ultraviolet and x-ray wavelengths of light. The experiments in this campaign are from Penn State University, University of Wisconsin, University of Colorado, and Johns Hopkins University. The flights are being conducted in Australia since the LMC can only be viewed from the Southern Hemisphere. The launches will be conducted by personnel from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA. All of the experiments will fly on the two-stage Black Brant IX sounding rocket. Experiments will descend by parachute and be recovered. One experiment will be refurbished at the Woomera range for reflight about a week after it is recovered. This will be NASA's first Australian sounding rocket campaign since 1987/88 when the Agency conducted six rocket experiments to study an exploding star, Supernova 1987a. The NASA Sounding Rocket Program is managed by the Wallops Flight Facility for the Office of Space Science, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. Approximately 30 sounding rocket missions are conducted annually from sites world-wide. - end - NASA press releases and other information are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail message to domo@hq.nasa.gov. In the body of the message (not the subject line) users should type the words "subscribe press-release" (no quotes). The system will reply with a confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. A second automatic message will include additional information on the service. Questions should be directed to (202) 358-4043. NASA 1995 Australian Sounding Rocket Campaign Experiment Information Penn State The first experiment scheduled for flight will examine how a superbubble of hot gas, formed when a group of stars explode, interacts with the interstellar medium, hot gas located between stars, according to David Burrows, co-investigator of the Penn State project. "It also is going to help our understanding of the physical processes that occur when you heat up a gas to such extremes," Burrows says, "and it will help us understand more about the structure of the interstellar medium and the evolution of the gas in our galaxy." The sounding rocket flight of the x-ray detector used in the Penn Sate experiment will serve as a dress rehearsal for this type of detector which will be used on more extensive satellite experiments. Burrows plans to use the detector on a multi-year satellite version of the sounding rocket experiment on the NASA/Argentina Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas (SAC-B) satellite schedule for launch in 1996. -more- NASA 1995 Australian Sounding Rocket Campaign Experiment Information p.2 Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins experiment will expand on the work of the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) satellite in viewing the hot star cluster R 136 and its surroundings in the LMC, said Stephan McCandliss, experiment project scientist. The Hopkins instrument will conduct measurements in the largely unexplored far ultraviolet (FUV) wavelength region where IUE and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are not sensitive. McCandliss said the FUV mirror technology developed for this sounding rocket instrument, which has flown previously, has already been applied to other projects. The technology has been embraced for use on the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) satellite scheduled for launch in 1998 and helped improve the results of the Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope between the ASTRO-1 and ASTRO-2 missions on the Space Shuttle in 1990 and 1995, respectively, McCandliss said. University of Colorado The University of Colorado has two experiments scheduled for flight. Erik Wilkinson, Colorado project scientist, said the first is a new high resolution imager instrument designed to help provide scientists with information on the intergalactic medium. This information will aid scientists in determining the temperature and structure of the medium and answering the basic question of "how did the medium get there," he said. As with the Hopkins experiment, the instrument will conduct measurements in the FUV wavelength region and scientifically will serve as a precursor to the FUSE mission, according to Wilkinson. The second Colorado experiment will fill in between data obtained by three previous satellites -- the Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer and Voyagers 1 and 2., Wilkinson said. The instrument will view the star Epsilon Canis Major, the brightest extreme ultraviolet source in the sky, he said. Wilkinson said, the mission will provide scientists a "unique opportunity to study a stellar atmosphere over the complete spectrum." The data gathered from this new instrument Colorado is flying will provide "crucial information to stellar modelers," he said. NASA 1995 Australian Sounding Rocket Campaign Experiment Information p. 3 University of Wisconsin The University of Wisconsin experiment is the last scheduled for launch. Ken Nordsieck, the Wisconsin principal investigator, said their experiment will study the polarization of the scattered ultraviolet light in the LMC to determine how interstellar matter, dust particles in space, is distributed. Through this study, the scientist will be able to develop a three- dimensional (3-D) layout and composition of the dust. Nordsieck said that 3-D viewing of astronomical objects is currently not possible. If the experiment is successful, this 3-D technique may be applied to other astronomy studies. ###############