Cielo Peru sounding rocket campaign (Cielo)

NASA is soliciting proposals for sounding rocket missions to be conducted in a campaign (called 'Cielo' or 'sky' in Spanish) from the Punta Lobos rocket range near Lima, Peru. The campaign is nominally scheduled for equinox in 2028. The purpose of the campaign is to investigate important, contemporary problems in equatorial aeronomy, space physics, and space weather. NASA carried out two highly successful campaigns from the Punta Lobos rocket range in 1975 and 1983. This new campaign, to be carried out at the existing rocket range, represents an opportunity to investigate outstanding, critical problems in equatorial aeronomy using state-of -the-art spacecraft and ground-based instrumentation. The site was chosen primarily due to its proximity to both the magnetic equator and the Jicamarca Radio Observatory with supporting clusters of instruments deployed in the region. Furthermore, Jicamarca is undergoing a series of upgrades that will enable it to support a number of new kinds of experiments and observations to complement the space-borne measurements.

The campaign is a collaborative effort involving NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Comisión National de Investigación y Sesarrollo Aeroespacial (CONIDA), and the Instituto Geofísico del Perú (IGP).

Whitepaper

A whitepaper motivating the scientific need for the campaign can be found here. This describes some of the most pressing problems in equatorial aeronomy, space physics, and space weather including space weather hazards associated with equatorial spread F, the enigmatic causes of so-called "150-km echoes," the behavior of the equatorial electrojet during the day and at night, persistent mesospheric turbulence, and the ionospheric dynamo.

Proposal language pursuant to Jicamarca support

Investigators requiring ground-based support from the Jicamarca Radio Observatory, including any of its supporting instruments such as the Digisonde, the VIPIR sounder, the AMISR-14, and regional magnetometers, GNSS receivers, and sounders, etc., should address their requirements by including the following text in their LCAS proposals. Note that this language supersedes instructions in B.9-6 of the LCAS solicitation.

We anticipate the availability of ground-based support for the Cielo campaign from the Jicamarca Radio Observatory. It is understood that individual PIs need not make provisions for Jicamarca observing time in their proposal budgets. To the extent the NASA mission outlined in this proposal requires Jicamarca support, we have verified that the necessary experimental capabilities are either available now or will be available by the time of the campaign with the Observatory Director, Danny Scipión, or the Campaign Scientist, David Hysell. The proposal furthermore outlines the nature of the observing support required. We anticipate that the proposed investigation will require up to XX hours of observing time.

Questions regarding this language can be addressed to the contacts below.