ELA launches second NASA rocket from Arnhem Space Centre

A NASA Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket was successfully launched on the evening of July 6, 2022 from Equatorial Launch Australia’s Arnhem Space Centre (ASC) in the Northern Territory of Australia. The launch was for NASA’s Suborbital Imaging Spectrograph for Transition region Irradiance from Nearby Exoplanet host stars, or SISTINE, mission for the University of Colorado. Preliminary analysis shows that good data was received by the science instrument during the flight.

The rocket carried the science instrument to an altitude of 151miles (243 km) before descending by parachute and landing southwest of the launch site. Recovery operations of the science instrument and the rocket motors have been facilitated by the indigenous owners of the land.

SISTINE was the second of three NASA space science missions scheduled from ASC. The X-ray Quantum Calorimeter, or XQC, experiment from the University of Wisconsin successfully launched on June 26, 2022. The next launch, carrying the Dual-channel Extreme Ultraviolet Continuum Experiment, or DEUCE, is scheduled for July 12, 2022.

These missions will help astronomers understand how starlight influences a planet’s atmosphere, possibly making or breaking its ability to support life as we know it.

“Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun played a role in how Mars lost its atmosphere and how Venus turned into a dry, barren landscape,” said Brian Fleming, astronomer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and DEUCE principal investigator. “Understanding ultraviolet radiation is extremely important to understanding what makes a planet habitable.”