Overview of NASA MTeX Sounding Rocket Campaign

This composite shot of all four rockets for the M-TeX and MIST experiments is made up of 30 second exposures. Image Credit: NASA/Jamie Adkins

The NASA MTeX mission addresses the fundamental question of contribution of wave-generated turbulence to energetics and mixing in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) in the presence of persistent regions of stability and instability. The MTeX mission achieves the above objectives by two similar instrumented rocket campaigns aided by comprehensive ground based measurements from the Poker Flat Rocket Range.

The rockets were launched with a time gap of 35 minutes into a persistent MIL on the morning of Jan 26, 2015. Each instrumented rocket consists of multi-Surface fixed bias DC Langmuir probe (mDCP), Swept Impedance Probe (SIP), Sweeping Langmuir Probe (SLP), and the CONE (Combined measurement of Neutrals and Electrons) sensor. The boom deployed instruments were contributed by SAIL, where as the CONE sensor and electronics were from Univ of Alaska, Fairbanks and Institute of Atmospheric Physics (Germany).