Office of News Services
University of Colorado-Boulder
Boulder, Colorado
Contact:
Charles Barth, (303) 492-7502
Randy Davis, (303) 492-6867
Jim Scott, (303) 492-3114
Dec. 1, 2003
CU's 'Little Satellite That Did' Set For Re-entry In Coming Days
A $5 million University of Colorado at Boulder satellite dubbed the "Little
Satellite That Did" now is expected to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up in
late November or early December following a successful six-year mission.
The Student Nitric Oxide Explorer, or SNOE, is carrying instruments that have
measured nitric oxide in the upper atmosphere that affects Earth's ozone layer,
the intensity of X-rays from the sun and ultraviolet light from Earth's aurora.
Developed at CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics by
students, engineers and faculty, the mission has been controlled from LASP's CU
Research Park facility 24 hours a day by students and faculty since early 1998.
"The SNOE satellite has been determining the influence of the sun on Earth's
upper atmosphere by measuring the amount of nitric oxide in the atmosphere,"
said Charles Barth, former LASP director and principal investigator of SNOE.
Produced when solar X-rays are absorbed into the atmosphere, nitric oxide
destroys naturally produced ozone when injected into the stratosphere 30 to 50
miles above Earth.
"NASA's latest predictions indicate that SNOE will re-enter the atmosphere on
Dec. 5," he said. "However, we are anticipating more solar storms in the next
few days that may cause it to come in earlier. We still are studying the effects
of the solar storms on the atmosphere, so any large storms in the next several
days will be good news for our scientific studies and bad news for the lifetime
of the satellite."
Orbiting at more than 300 miles above Earth, SNOE has helped CU-Boulder
scientists and students map the effect of global X-rays on the atmosphere. SNOE
data have shown that nitric oxide levels in the mesosphere correlate with the
27-day cycle of solar X-rays coming from the sun.
In addition, the researchers discovered that when charged particles sent
rocketing to Earth by solar storms slam into Earth's magnetic field and are
injected into the polar regions, they produce both Aurora Borealis and Aurora
Australis. "The same particles that cause the aurora also produce the nitric
oxide in the upper atmosphere," said Barth. This helps CU researchers determine
how much energy is injected in the polar regions, he said.
Roughly 60 students from disciplines ranging from business, film studies and
computer science have participated in the on-campus control of SNOE, said Randy
Davis, LASP's mission operations director. LASP currently controls five satellites.
SNOE's design and construction phase involved more than 100 students, primarily
undergraduates, said Davis. SNOE was one of three spacecraft selected for flight
by the Universities Space Research Association in 1994 as part of NASA's Student
Explorer Demonstration Initiative. CU's spacecraft was the first to launch.
"It is remarkable to me how successful SNOE has been," said Davis. "The reasons
we built SNOE in-house was the opportunity of involving more than 100 students
in the project from design and construction to satellite control and the
tremendous science SNOE was capable of doing. We have extremely competent and
enthusiastic students here."
From 1981 to 1989, CU students and faculty controlled the Solar Mesosphere
Explorer satellite from campus, the first NASA satellite ever entirely operated
and controlled by a university. SNOE was the second.
The three-foot-diameter, 220-pound spacecraft was launched on a Pegasus
expendable-launch vehicle built by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va. The
Pegasus carried the satellite to an altitude of 40,000 feet by jet aircraft and
dropped into a five-second free fall. Pegasus then ignited horizontally and
began ascending, placing SNOE in a circular orbit about 340 miles above Earth
within 10 minutes.
CU students tapped into the expertise of engineers from Ball Aerospace Corp. --
which built the Solar Mesosphere Explorer satellite -- and the National Center
for Atmospheric Research, working side by side with them in all phases of the
project.
The operations were supported in part by a special excellence award from the
Colorado Commission on Higher Education, said Davis.
"During the final months of SNOE's lifetime, the students formed a SNOE re-entry
team to carefully monitor the satellite's performance," said Barth. "This has
been a truly unique experience for CU-Boulder students to participate in from
launch to re-entry."
The SNOE research team expects almost all of the satellite to burn up during
re-entry, with perhaps a few small fragments falling into the ocean.
Additional information on the SNOE project can be found on the Web at
http://lasp.colorado.edu/programs_missions/present/off_site/snoe.html
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