WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. (WAVY) — While many are excited about the upcoming total solar eclipse, NASA has another reason for excitement.
It plans to launch three Black Brant IX sounding rockets from its Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore during Monday’s total solar eclipse to study how Earth’s upper atmosphere is affected when sunlight dims for a moment over part of the planet.
The launches will be livestreamed on NASA Wallops’ official YouTube page beginning at 2:30 p.m. EDT and will also be featured on NASA’s official total solar eclipse broadcast. The public can also watch the launches in person from 1 to 4 p.m. at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center.
Those rockets will launch at three different times — 45 minutes before the total solar eclipse, during it, and then 45 minutes after the peak local eclipse, and they are expected to reach a maximum altitude of 260 miles. The launch window opens at 2:40 p.m. EDT, with targeted launch times for the three rockets being 2:40 p.m., 3:20 p.m. and 4:05 p.m., but those times are subject to change.
NASA said the three launches are important to gather data on how the sun’s disappearance affects the ionosphere, “creating disturbances that have the potential to interfere with our communications.”
And with the next total solar eclipse over the contiguous U.S. not until 2044, NASA said the experiments will allow scientists a rare chance to gather crucial data. It will study disturbances in the ionosphere that happen when the moon eclipses the sun.
Last October during the annular solar eclipse, the sounding rockets were launched and successfully recovered from the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. They have been refurbished with new instrumentation for the upcoming launch.
The ionosphere is a part of the Earth’s atmosphere between 55 to 310 miles above ground.
“It’s an electrified region that reflects and refracts radio signals, and also impacts satellite communications as the signals pass through,” said Aroh Barjatya, a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida who directs the space and atmospheric instrumentation lab. “Understanding the ionosphere and developing models to help us predict disturbances is crucial to making sure our increasingly communication-dependent world operates smoothly.”
Besides the rocket launches, several teams of people across the country will also take ionosphere measurements, including a team of students from Embry-Riddle, who will be using high-altitude balloons. Others will work with a ground-based radars and take measurements to ultimately refine current models. NASA is hoping it will help it see a bigger picture of ionospheric dynamics.
Those coming to the Wallops area will see the eclipse begin around 2:06 p.m., with the moon blocking 81.4% of the sun’s light at peak local eclipse at 3:23 p.m. and finish at 4:34 p.m. Here are some tips for safely watching the eclipse.