ROCKET STUDIES OF ISOLATED IONOSPHERIC IRREGULARITIES

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Physics
• Main Authors: Mason, K. H., Tull, E. H., Forsyth, P. A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1967
• Subjects: General Physics and Astronomy; Fort Churchill; Churchill
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/p67-253; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/p67-253

It has been shown previously that ground-based observations of the relative phase, or direction-of-arrival, of radio signals propagated through the ionosphere from artificial satellites provide a useful extension to existing techniques for the study of ionospheric irregularities. This technique has now been extended to observations of the auroral ionosphere using small transmitters ejected from two rockets launched at Fort Churchill, Manitoba. Observations were also made on beacon signals from the Alouette I satellite as it passed over Fort Churchill and these revealed large irregularities in the F region but no similar irregularities in the E region. Nevertheless, when transmitters were placed between the E and the F regions, large E-region irregularities (1–2 km in diameter) having excess electron densities of the order of 2 × 10 11 m −3 were clearly revealed. The background ionization, though not measured, was probably of about the same magnitude. These preliminary observations raise a number of questions which need further investigation.