WKU News & Events

March 25, 2002

NASA Selects WKU Space Science
Project For Funding

Bowling Green, Ky. - Another space science research project involving Western Kentucky University's STARBASE program has been approved for funding by NASA.

Dr. Gerald Lehmacher, research associate in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, is the principal investigator on a project to study the mesosphere (the layer of earth's atmosphere between 50 and 100 km).

"I am very happy about having my own rocket project," he said. "I am grateful for the research funds provided by the astronomy group that made it possible to work toward and reach that goal. After the first ozonesonde balloon measurements in Kentucky last December, WKU has now entered the rocket age."

Lehmacher's research and other projects involving a robotic telescope network are part of STARBASE (Students Training for Achievement in Research Based on Analytical Space-science Experiences), a program to involve high school and college students in space science research.

In his latest project, Lehmacher and his co-investigators will design two payloads for measurements in the mesosphere. The launch is planned for spring 2004 near a radar facility in Jicamarca, Peru.

"NASA has approved a rocket campaign at Jicamarca with several experiments using radar and rocket methods," Lehmacher said. "Our experiment is one of four that have been selected for funding."

Lehmacher has proposed the rocket flight with instrumentation to study mesospheric radar echoes caused by fluctuations in electron density. The echoes provide details about atmospheric dynamics, turbulence and particles in the atmosphere.

"We don't know much about the mesosphere since rockets are the only way to measure there directly," he said. "Mesospheric dynamics is interesting because it's forced from below by weather systems and the stratosphere and from above by the sun and magnetosphere. Changes in both will result in changes of the mesosphere."

Even the powerful radar at Jicamarca may not be able to resolve all the details of the electron fluctuations in mesospheric echoes, he said, but the rocket instrumentation will measure neutral density, temperature, electron density, ion density and charged aerosol particles.

"Together with the radar data we will get a better insight in the processes responsible for these echoes," Lehmacher said.

Lehmacher recently met with scientists and engineers at NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility to present and discuss his requirements for rocket and payload. In May he will be visiting the radar site in Peru for a workshop.

For more information, contact Gerald Lehmacher at (270) 745-4357. More WKU news is available on the World Wide Web at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via E-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.