After sending 4 rockets on southward trajectories to see if we could find an end to the hazardous radiation region discovered ~350km above the planet, the final flight in that series recorded no radiation increase above the baseline 0.01rad/hr found outside the atmosphere. To determine whether the same could be said north of the equator, this flight sent up earlier in the week was planned to mirror the third launch of the Mk6 Block I that found an increase, but not to peak levels of 10rad/hr. If we could record similar measurements on this flight, we could determine the field is fairly uniform around the equator, otherwise we could find significantly more or less to tell us the field is asymmetrical.

The Flight

Because the rocket needed to launch northwards, the launch base had to be moved out into the field north of the runway so the rocket would not risk damaging the new service towers constructed on the launch pad for Ascension rockets. This presented some issues that slightly delayed the launch as cables run out that far to carry power and data were not able to handle the distance initially, and relays/repeaters had to be installed. Although we’ve had rockets launch from this area before, the power requirements of the Progeny Mk2.1 were much less and no data was needed other than a simple electrical signal to trigger the launch.

Read the rest of this entry »