Waiting for solar flares at Poker Flat Research Center in Interior Alaska

POKER FLAT RESEARCH RANGE — Under a bluebird sky, perched on a springy winter snowpack, two sonic rockets point upward, about to break through the thickness of the atmosphere for a better look at the sun.

Two women are housed inside a building at this sprawling complex in the Chatanika River Valley north of Fairbanks. Each gives a command to fire her one of the rockets, and the second is fired about a minute after the first.

Astrophysicists Lindsey Grener of Minnesota and Sabrina Savage of Alabama are trying to learn more about the solar flare that occurs during the five-minute arc of the rocket over northern Alaska.

Their double daytime launch is a rare event here at Poker Flat, owned by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. Since the range’s inception in 1969, most rockets have been fired at night.

Since then, more than 300 sounding rockets, most of them more than 20 feet tall, have flown over Alaska. Many people have brought equipment that allows scientists to study the aurora borealis and other phenomena in the upper atmosphere more than 80 miles above our heads.

Grener’s and Savage’s separate rockets will each carry instruments designed to gather the best information yet available about solar flares. A solar flare is an explosion of the sun that sends charged particles flying into space. Sometimes they head toward Earth, causing vivid aurora borealis and, in their powerful cases, knocking out satellites and power grids.

Two days after the rocket was ready for launch, Grener of the University of Minnesota and Savage of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center observed live measurements from a satellite orbiting 93 million miles of space between the Sun and Poker Flat. are doing.

Instruments aboard these satellites show dramatic increases when large solar flares are exploding. Once Mr. Grener and Mr. Savage determine that the flare is large enough, they begin his three-minute countdown to fire the two rockets.

It’s a gloriously sunny day here in Chatanika today, but the satellite data displayed on our monitors shows that no flares of the desired size are exploding in our direction. However, as the experiment was still in its early stages and no large-scale solar flare was expected, the day was partially devoted to problem-solving and adjusting the equipment.

“Today is kind of a rehearsal for the real thing,” Grener said outside the start-up team’s room at the Neil Davis Science Operations Center, located atop a hill in the 5,000-acre Poker Flat complex. .

Someday, if not today, Mr. Grener and Mr. Savage will decide to launch their rockets when the sun flares and explodes. Flares may erupt from the sun for about 10 minutes. Once launched, the rocket will carry the equipment out of the dense molecules of Earth’s atmosphere within her two minutes.

Once the rocket reaches above that 30-mile shell of gas, the rocket’s panels will open and a telescope optimized to observe the energy released by solar flares will be deployed. High-resolution views of solar flares last just 5 minutes.

After the payload inside the rocket takes measurements, gravity will pull it back to the ground in northern Alaska. Range workers retrieve the rocket stage and its parachute by helicopter.

As the morning turns to afternoon, the satellite shows no noticeable solar flares. That doesn’t seem to be stressing Mr. Grener and Mr. Savage. Because the Sun and Earth’s rotations are predictable, scientists are optimistic that a flare of the right size will head toward Earth within days.

This experiment has one more week to start, so you have time to wait.

Until then, dozens of team members supporting Glenner and Savage, as well as Poker Flat staff, show up here at Chatanika early every morning to prepare for the countdown.

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The person who was counting down the seconds over and over in an amplified voice was Range Director Casey Rich. She is currently in a building called the Blockhouse, three miles down the hill near the Chatanika River.

Rich lives with dozens of others in a massive building with walls two feet thick. They are located just 300 feet from the closest of the two rockets.

The blockhouse has been Rich’s home since 1991, when he witnessed the launch of the first poker flat rocket. Since then, she has taken shelter in a windowless, somewhat underground control room on her 154 launches, most of which were subzero and dark days.

Rich was very close to hearing all the explosions that echoed through this forested valley, but he never saw the rocket launch except on a video monitor. Rich, who has worked with dozens of scientists conducting experiments embedded in rockets and students relying on information collected during launch, says the risks are high.

“This payload took four years to get off the ground from the design and construction process,” she says. “If they fail, many students will not be able to obtain the data they need to complete their degrees. Many years and tears have been poured into these payloads.”

In contrast to Rich’s isolated vantage point, Glenner and Savage, and others stationed here at the Davis Science Center, have views of the nearby Pedro and Wickersham domes and the stark white mountains inside the White House. In the background you will enjoy a sublime view of the launch. Mountain National Recreation Area.

As the sun arced to the west and the clock struck 4 p.m. with no solar flare detected, the researchers decided to call it a day. After debriefing with the team, they hop into a rental car and head back to their hotel in Fairbanks.

Tomorrow, they hope to come to this quiet Chatanika River Valley again to send the rocket into the sky and capture data on its previous flights.

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