White Sands Missile Range

White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) has been America's main rocketry proving ground since the 30's. It's productivity was greatly enhanced after WWII, with the influx of many German rocket scientists (including Wernher von Braun) and V-2 rockets.

A V-2 on display at WSMR. These used to carry German bombs to London. After the war, the US captured many unused V-2s and modified them to carry scientific instruments.

We spent several weeks at WSMR doing final Integration & Testing, tying up loose ends, and practicing for the launch.

Here's the team members that came down to help launch. Most of the experiment team is put in their own flight operations building, separate from other personnel. Flights often go awry, and many rockets have to be cut down (blown up) to prevent them from flying off the missile range. Putting the experiment team in a separate building means that they can't try to physically stop someone from hitting the self-destruct button (apparently this has been a problem in the past).

From left to right: Thomas Rogers (that's me!), Drew Miles (undergrad assistant), Randy McEntaffer (PI), Ted Schultz (electrical engineer), and James Tutt (post-doc).

And here's Jake McCoy (junior grad student), who spent launch night (and most practice sessions) in a different building with most of the WSMR and WFF personnel.

Launch conditions are severe, and our detectors are fragile. For this reason, we built in several real-time uplink commands that we could send to each detector during flight in case anything went wrong. The most common issues the detectors have in a laboratory setting are electrical arcing (since they're held at high voltage) and window tears (since the windows are only 0.5 microns thick). During flight, we had the ability to turn the detectors on/off (to stop arcing), empty/refill the detector gas (to stop a leak into the payload when a window tear occurs), and reset the telemetry system (in case it's not transmitting). Time is precious during a suborbital flight, so spent a lot of time practicing different in-flight scenarios and familiarizing ourselves with the uplink system.

A picture of us practicing using the uplinks. The screen on the left shows the video feed from the star tracker to show where the payload is pointing, as well as touch-pad uplink buttons. The screen on the right shows our custom made GUI, which displays various information about the health of the payload (voltages, gas pressures, count rates, etc).

We also ran through countdown procedures many times with all mission personnel.

A photo-op with the rocket:

Shortly before launch, we have to take our vacuum pump and ancillary equipment off the payload:

Eventually, after years of preparation: Launch! 2:00 A.M. May 2nd 2015.

Launch isn't the end of the story. After ~1.5 hours of sleep, it's time to recover the payload. To do this, 2 army helicopters are flown up-range until the giant orange parachute is spotted. Several members of the experiment team go along to safe certain systems and to help load the payload onto the helicopter.

The second stage motor comes down without a parachute and lands relatively close to the payload. It is photographed to note any abnormalities, but is not recovered.

The payload, seen from the helicopter:

Here I am, loosening some pressurized gas connections to release the pressure.

A chance to pose with the payload!

From left to right: Jake McCoy, Drew Miles, and Thomas Rogers (me!). (That guy in the background -- doing actual work -- is Irvine, our mechanical technician from WFF)

Loading up the payload:

Back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Ready to take her back home!