China Conducted Space Scientific Experiments: Sprinkling Barium Powder at High Altitude and Studying Ionized Stratum

2013/04/10 People’s Daily

    From state space science center of Chinese Academy of Science, reporters were informed that our space environment vertical sounding and space science active experimentation were conducted and achieved complete success at Hainan sounding department of Chinese Academy of Science in Danzhou city of Hainan province at five minutes to six o’clock on 5th.
    Wu Ji, the experiment director and manager of state space science center of Chinese Academy of Science said that “sounding rocket released 1 kilogram barium metal powder in the nearby ionized stratum at 200km altitude. Exposed to sunlight, barium ionized quickly to form barium cloud. We studied dynamic characteristics of ionized stratum in equatorial region by observing the evolution of barium cloud. We called this space scientific experiment as active experiment, which was carried out for the first time in our country.”
    At the same time, the success of this experiment will provide in-situ exploratory data for studying the vertical distribution of main physical parameters in space environment at different altitudes. This success also calibrates for ground-based remote sensing observation apparatus in the research on vertical distribution characteristics in low-latitude space environment. 
    It has been said that the flight height of the rocket in this experiment is 191km. The total flight time is 8 minutes from take off to landing. The sonde carries three kinds of scientific instruments which include Langmuir probe detecting electron and ion vertical distribution, space electric field instrument detecting vertical distribution of space electric field and barium trip gear studying kinetics feature of ionized stratum. 
  This experimental launch vehicle—skyhawk 3E is developed by AASPT which belongs to china aerospace science and technology corporation. The sonde—roc first is developed with the cooperation of state space science center of Chinese Academy of Science, Xi’an institute of optics of Chinese Academy of Science and University of Glaz. State space science center of Chinese Academy of Science is the main unit of this experiment and responsible for rocket launching site, telemetering, ground and system task of scientific application. 
    Hainan sounding department of Chinese Academy of Science was established in 1986. It has been comprehensively improved in national major technological infrastructure meridian project and has nearly ten kinds of space environment foundation comprehensive observation apparatus, except for the capacity of launching sounding rocket. Its geographic position near the equator is the prominent advantage of observation. (Reporter: Wu Yuehui)