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The Guará Campaign: A series of rocket‐radar investigations of the Earth's upper atmosphere at the magnetic equator
Author(s) -
Pfaff R. F.,
Sobral J. H. A.,
Abdu M. A.,
Swartz W. E.,
LaBelle J. W.,
Larsen M. F.,
Goldberg R. A.,
Schmidlin F. J.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/97gl01534
Subject(s) - equator , thermosphere , atmosphere (unit) , ionosphere , daytime , sunset , equatorial electrojet , geology , radar , physics , geophysics , environmental science , earth's magnetic field , meteorology , atmospheric sciences , latitude , geodesy , astronomy , aerospace engineering , magnetic field , engineering , quantum mechanics
The Guará Campaign consisted of a series of sounding rockets that were launched from August‐October, 1994 at a new launch facility at Alcântara, Brazil, which is within one degree of the Earth's magnetic equator. The campaign consisted of focused scientific experiments designed to investigate the electrodynamics and irregularities in the equatorial ionosphere and mesosphere and to study their relationship with neutral upper atmosphere motions. In all, 13 large sounding rockets and 20 small meteorological rockets were launched as part of four different experiment groups designed to investigate: (1) the daytime equatorial electrojet, (2) very high altitude Spread‐F processes, (3) sunset electrodynamics, and (4) middle atmosphere‐thermosphere coupling at the equator. All of the experiments utilized ground‐based scientific instruments including a VHF backscatter radar interferometer, magnetometers, ionosondes, and scintillation receivers. The project was a joint undertaking of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States and the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espacias (INPE) of Brazil. The project was named the Guará Campaign after a beautiful species of bird that is native to the equatorial region of Brazil.