NSPO's Sounding Rocket 7 successfully launched on May 5, 2010

The NARL's National Space Organization (NSPO) is currently engaged in a 15-year space technology development program that focuses on the development of innovative and emerging technologies completely in-country. The program is to strengthen the self-reliance of the Taiwan space industry, and position it to meet current and future needs of the Taiwan space program. Under this context, the NARL-NSPO has long taken efforts in designing aerospace components, fabricating payload instruments for suborbital and orbital spaceflights, impROVing rocket technologies, establishing test flight platforms, and gaining a better understanding of the Earth's plasma environment and of other events in the ionosphere. The latter can interfere with radio communications, global positioning systems (GPS), ground electrical systems, and low-Earth satellite orbits.

So, on May 5, 2010 at 7:50 PM Taiwan time (03:50 GMT), the Sounding Rocket 7 (SR-7), following six sounding rockets launched between 1998 and 2007, was launched from southe Taiwan. SR-7 was designed to test the separation of the nose-cone fairing so its payload could face the ramming direction of the rocket for investigating plasma structures in the Earth's ionosphere, the thrust performance, and the system stability. SR-7's flight trajectory reached the maximum altitude and downrange of 289 km and 210 km, respectively. This thrust performance was best among all of the NARL-NSPO's sounding rocket missions.

SR-7's nose-cone fairing, which protected the payload during the ascent against the impact of the atmosphere, was jettisoned 58 seconds after launch, exposing the payload for scientific investigations. The SR-7 payload, developed by a research team from National Central University, included: two ion traps, a retarding potential analyzer, a Langmuir probe, an aspectmeter, and a GPS receiver. The synchronized operation of these instruments in the payload, unprecedented in the NARL-NSPO's sounding rocket program, collected the valuable data on the plasma density, ion and electron temperatures in the ionosphere, as well as the rocket's flight coordinates and motion.

Measurements made with SR-7 were complemented with ground-based observations associated with ionosphere. Instruments installed near the rocket launch site and elsewhere included: ultra-high frequency radar arrays of 30 MHz and 52 MHz, a tri-band beacon (TBB) receiver for the FORMOSAT-3 satellite, and a high-resolution GPS receiver. They were used to measure the irregularities in electron density distributions in the E-layer (88 km to 144 km above sea level) and F-layer (144 km to 384 km above sea level), as well as the flickering effects in satellite communication. Measurements made with these ground-based and suborbital missions are important because they complement and validate measurements made by satellites. By coupling with ground-based observations, the SR-7 suborbital mission has achieved the following significant results:  1) FORMOSAT-3's ionosphere plasma density data verified accurate;  2) the formation of ionosphere irregularities characterized;  3) the drifting velocities of the ionosphere irregularities estimated; and  4) the thermodynamic effects in ionosphere irregularity formation elucidated.