The key to quick answers

Source | NASA / YouTube | 06 April 2024 1 minute
Sounding rocket missions can often be the key to getting a quick answer to a tightly focused science question. For over 40 years the Sounding Rocket Program has provided critical scientific, technical, and educational contributions to the nation’s space program and is one of the most robust, versatile, and cost-effective flight programs at NASA. A sounding rocket, sometimes also referred to as “research rocket”, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The basic elements of sounding rocket are a solid-fuel rocket motor and a science payload. The rocket consumes its fuel on the first stage of the rising part of the flight, then separates and falls away, leaving the payload to complete the arc and return to the ground under a parachute. As there are some important regions of space that are too low for satellites, sounding rockets provide the only platforms that can carry out measurements in these regions. For more please check out www.nasa.gov