Space Physics at Dartmouth -- LaBelle Group | Dartmouth Balloon Group | Theoretical Group
ROPA - Update - January 13, 2007
Today we finally completed (mostly) the arming and practice count procedures, and the launchers have been elevated to near vertical. This has taken longer than typical because of lots of motor arming safety procedures, but we haven't missed much because the magnetosphere isn't just quiet, it appears to be comatose...We were supposed to have cloudy skies and active aurora tonight, but we had clear skies and absolutely no aurora at all (I've never seen it so quiet in all my years up here), so, so much for predictive capabilities. Still, with some (hopefully minor) concerns and remaining (hopefully minor) arming procedures, we are now vertical and through the practice counts, and basically ready to go; all we need is some aurora!
I meant to take a picture of the rockets on the rails (by "vertical" I mean that the house structures over the rails have been pulled back and the launchers with their payloads have been moved to a vertical position) on the way out tonight (this morning; the window goes to 5am local time) but I forgot. I'll try to get one tomorrow. In the meantime, there are some other photos at http://mirl.sr.unh.edu/ROPA_launch.html the web page put together by Marc Lessard's UNH grad students.