PoSSUM - TechTalk - Apr 22

How can manned suborbital vehicles support science in the upper atmosphere?  We will get an example of this in our next TechTalk, on Monday, April 22.  Jason Reimuller, prinicipal investigator on PoSSUM, will describe the project.  Below is the first part of the abstract on the TechTalks webpage for the talk.

The Polar Suborbital Science in the Upper Mesosphere (PoSSUM) campaign will employ a manned reusable suborbital vehicle that will launch from a high-latitude spaceport (e.g. Alaska or Kiruna, Sweden) during a weeklong deployment scheduled for July 2014 to study numerous aspects of Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs).  PoSSUM will optimize the opportunity created by the “PMC  Imagery and Tomography Experiment”, a high-latitude campaign selected by the NASA Flight Opportunities Program (Experiment 46-S) to study the small-scale dynamics of PMCs.  The PoSSUM Project will make full use of the 46-S opportunity by fully utilizing all available payload space and campaign deployment time to optimize technology maturation and science return while validating a repeatable, low-cost means to study seasonal trends of PMCs.

The manned suborbital spacecraft referenced is the XCOR Lynx, which is currently being completed in Mojave, California.  This is a chance to learn about this PMC phenomena as well as what it's like to work with the NASA Flight Opportunities Program.  The TechTalks webpage lists some additional links to resources, including a 2-page summary PDF of the project.