U-M Scientists Will Probe Stratosphere With Rockets

U-M Scientists Will Probe Stratosphere With Rockets

University scientists will take “soundings” of the 100-mile-high reaches of the earth’s atmosphere with instrument-carrying rockets late this month.

Purpose of the investigation, which will be carried out at the Air Force Proving Grounds at White Sands, N. Mex., will be to determine meteorological differences between day and night.

The differences (of atmospheric pressure and temperature) will be determined by firing skyward two “Aerobee” rockets, similar to the German V-2 rocket but smaller in size, one of these to be launched in the daytime and the other at night.

Nelson W. Spencer, research engineer in the University’s Engineering Research Institute, will be in charge of the rocket project, which will be conducted in cooperation with the Air Materiel Command division of the U. S. Air Force.

The high altitude research work has been in progress for several years, and its results are expected to aid in the design of military equipment and to add to fundamental knowledge of weather factors.

Previous direct investigation of the atmosphere has been confined to balloon ceilings 20 miles above the earth's surface, Spencer points out. The use of rockets make it possible to study the atmosphere at much greater heights.

Each of the rockets to be used in the September firing will carry about 100 pounds of electronic apparatus designed and constructed by University research engineers and graduate students.

This equipment, consisting mostly of specialized gauges, will measure atmospheric pressure from the ground up to the maximum altitude attained. Information obtained will make it possible to determine the temperature by mathematical computations.

Research engineers will maintain contact with the flying rockets by means of radio transmitters in the rockets and receiving and recording machines on the ground.