NASA plans to launch three sounding rockets during the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, as part of the Atmospheric Perturbations in the Eclipse Path Project (APEP). These rockets will be launched from NASA’s flight facility in Wallops, Virginia, with the goal of studying how Earth’s upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight momentarily dims over a portion of the planet.
The APEP project, led by Professor Aroh Barjatya of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, aims to investigate disturbances in the ionosphere generated by the solar eclipse. The sounding rockets, refurbished with new instrumentation, will take off at three key times: 45 minutes before, during and 45 minutes after the peak of the local eclipse.
The ionosphere, an electrified region of the Earth’s atmosphere between 90 and 500 kilometers above the surface, plays a crucial role in the reflection and refraction of radio signals, as well as in satellite communications. Understanding how the eclipse affects this region is essential to ensure smooth functioning of communications in our increasingly dependent world.
In addition to the rockets, several teams in the United States, including Embry-Riddle students and collaborators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Haystack Observatory and the Air Force Research Laboratory, will take measurements of the ionosphere in various ways, using high-speed balloons. altitude and ground radars.
During the annular solar eclipse of 2023, scientists observed a sharp reduction in the density of charged particles as the shadow of the eclipse passed over the atmosphere. With the launch of APEP rockets during the 2024 total eclipse, scientists hope to learn more about these disturbances and how they affect radio communications.
