NISSE: A partial success The REXUS 6 rocket carrying the NISSE experiment was launched from Esrange Space Centre, Kiruna, Sweden on Thursday 12 Mar, 2009 at 10:08 UT. Before eight in the morning the helicopter scanned the impact area for human beings. The wind balloons were launched for the trajectory calculation of the rocket. The sirens started and the radio silence was announced. To keep the excitement high, the EISCAT UHF radar did not start properly at first. But an hour before the launch everything was ready, and by using the calculated nominal trajectory file the EISCAT UHF was redirected, pointing at the expected water release position. It was a textbook launch (See YouTube: ...

The NISSE launch campaign The launch campaign of the REXUS 5/6 rockets started on 2 Mar and will last until 15 Mar, 2009. According to the latest time schedule, REXUS 6 with NISSE onboard will be launched next Tuesday 10 Mar, and the other rocket REXUS 5 on Thursday 12 Mar. But this may also turn to be vice versa. The NISSE team has been busy with last preparations of the experiment for the launch. Vidar Hølland and Gard Mellemstrand has been concentrating on the payload assembly and Timo Pitkänen has taken care of the preparations for the EISCAT radar measurements. The fourth member of the team, Gisela Baumann, arrived at Esrange today and will stay for the rest of the campaign. Follow the NISSE Countdown blog at ...

It's less than two months before the first Hot Countdown of the REXUS 6 student rocket campaign. Here are some details about the NISSE payload: The NISSE payload description The REXUS 6 rocket campaign is approaching. Currently, the first Hot Countdown is scheduled to be on the 10th March, 2009. Vidar Hølland from the NISSE team has been the main responsible of the mechanical design and construction of the experiment payload together with rocket engineers in the University of Bergen, Norway. The payload is almost ready and some details are described below. ...

At the end of 2007, teacher Turtle Haste's eighth-grade class at James Monroe Middle School in Albuquerque, New Mexico reported on a project to measure sun shadows all over the world, including at several Antarctic stations. to better understand how the Earth and the Sun interact, and how the seasons progress. The project is going strong, and there is now a call for everyone to join in. There is a new project page up, and also a Google Map that shows recent measurements: ...

Christmas is approaching fast and the NISSE team is busy, but let's have a look what happened few weeks ago considering the NISSE EISCAT activity. The longer the polar night gets the more suitable time it is for ground-based auroral measurements in the north. During a couple of weeks before the 'Above The Poles' day, several space physicists from the University of Oulu, the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory and the Finnish Meteorological Institute, well wrapped to withstand the polar biting cold, were mobilized for the annual Finnish EISCAT measurement campaign. During the campaign, series of measurements were taken, including ev...

Background NISSE may evoke for some of us a short Elf type fellow with a long beard and a red knitted cap. According to an old tradition Norwegian farmers believe that if Nisse lives in their barns, they will be blessed. Therefore around Christmas when the Nisses are active, they prepare food for them and, believe it or not – it's always eaten up by the next morning! Some other readers may be familiar with the name NISSE because of a Norwegian s...

SciencePoles science journalist Jean de Pomereu is currently aboard the research and logistics ice breaker, the Xue Long (Snow Dragon), covering the 25th Chinese Antarctic expedition (CHINARE). As the first ever non-Chinese journalist allowed to take part in a Chinese Antarctic expedition, Mr. de Pomereu will document this season’s expedition with regularly published articles on the International Polar Foundation's SciencePoles website. With 204 participants led by Professor Huigen Yang, developments during this year’s CHINARE expedition will be very interesting to follow as researchers conduct 36 different science programmes in fields ranging from marine ...

I am traveling from Toronto to Ottawa and the train has just started moving. I'm passing a familiar skyline of the CN Tower, downtown, the Don Valley, and hopefully soon I'll see Lake Ontario on my right. I lived in Toronto for 5 years and though I haven't been back often, the scenery remains a home from home. Ottawa will be all new to me, and I'm glad to have grounded myself in the familiar for my first jet-lagged evening. I will be met by someone from Students On Ice at the train station, and presumably a handful of soon-to-be-friends also arriving on this route. (The heavens have opened, so much for my scenic train journey.) How do I feel? Excited, apprehensive, confident, intrigued, honoured, calm. I love th...

This recent article on Earthzine from three members of the IPY Data Management Committee presents the opportunities and the challenges of meeting IPY's data goals in both historical and global contexts. The article reminded me, again, of the powerful impact IPY can have on the future of scientific information, and that achieving that impact requires resources (of course) but more importantly commitment and cooperation from the IPY participants. If you wonder why you continue to hear, from the IPO, from your funding agencies, and from the IPY Data and Information Services, reminders about the importance of metadata and data registration and data archivin...

Noora Partamies describes experiences from a substorm school in Iceland, part of IPY project 63; ICESTAR/IHY. Once again the space physics group of the University of Bergen put together a substorm school for Master and PhD students in space physics. This time the course was organised together with Finnish Meteorological Institute. Six students and two lecturers from Norway met three students and two lecturers from Finland for ten days in late November to learn, observe and discuss substorm related processes in the near Earth space. The course location was a small Fosshótel Nesbúð in Nesjavellir about 80 km east of Reykjavik, a few kilometres off the shore of the Icela...