University of Iowa Research Scientist George Hospodarsky designed and built the magnetic search coil detectors flown on the NASA suborbital rocket successfully launched May 26, 2021.
The two-stage vehicle was carrying the Vlf trans-Ionospheric Propagation Experiment Rocket, or VIPER, designed to study radio waves that escape through the Earth's ionosphere impacting the environment surrounding GPS and geosynchronous satellites, such as those for weather monitoring and communications.
News Releases
- NASA Rocket Mission Studying Escaping Radio Waves
- NASA Rocket from Wallops Launches Studying Escaping Radio Waves
- University of Iowa instrument involved in NASA's VIPER mission
Extras
- Launch video, courtesy of Engineer Ryan Helland
- The 2021 Q2 Rocket Report describes VIPER on page 8