Author: vern@raben.com

Planes, Rockets and Baloons:

80 years of suborbital space research at the University of Colorado

Tom Woods, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at University of Colorado at Boulder

Before NASA and the era of satellites, space research began in the 1930s-1940s as modest experiments to study Earth’s upper atmosphere (stratosphere) and solar ultraviolet radiation using planes, rockets, and balloons. None of these early science missions made it into an orbit about Earth and thus are known as suborbital flights.

The first University of Colorado suborbital missions were led by Physics Department professors with flights of their solar instruments aboard captured V2 rockets. A research group called the Upper Air Laboratory (UAL) was created in 1948 to develop new rocket technology and science instruments for this new field of space physics.

UAL was renamed in 1965 to Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) and expanded their research to also include satellites and continuation of suborbital space research. University of Colorado has had more than 240 suborbital rocket flights since 1948, and they still have very active suborbital rocket programs to develop new space hardware technology, study time-critical events like new comets, underflight calibrations for some of their satellite instruments, and train the next generation of space scientists and engineers.

This presentation will provide an introduction to some of this rocket and space instrument technology and science topics and will end with a remarkable movie from cameras aboard one of our suborbital rocket flights.

Tom Woods is a Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He earned his B.S. in Physics in 1981 from Southwestern at Memphis (now Rhodes College) and his Ph.D. in Physics in 1985 from Johns Hopkins University. He previously served as LASP’s Associate Director of Technical Divisions for 15 years. Dr. Woods is a leading expert in solar ultraviolet irradiance and its effects on Earth’s atmosphere and climate. He has served as Principal Investigator for several major NASA missions and instruments, including TIMED SEE, SDO EVE, SORCE, TSIS-1, and the MinXSS CubeSat missions. He has received numerous honors for his contributions, including NASA’s Outstanding Public Leadership Medal. 

Before NASA and the era of satellites, space research began in the 1930s-1940s as modest experiments to study Earth’s upper atmosphere (stratosphere) and solar ultraviolet radiation using planes, rockets, and balloons. None of these early science missions made it into an orbit about Earth and thus are known as suborbital flights. 

The next LAS Meeting will be on Thursday, January 15, 2026 In the Longmont Pinocchios restaurant, 210 Ken Pratt Blvd Suite 200, Longmont, CO 80501 from 6 to 9 pm. This is a social event; there is no speaker.

Presentation

“Lucy: The First Mission to the Trojan Asteroids” by Dr. John Spencer, SWRI

Summary

The Trojan asteroids share Jupiter’s orbit in two vast swarms, on ahead of Jupiter and one behind.  They are nearly as numerous as the main-belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, but appear to be different in composition, having formed further from the sun.  They have yet to be explored by spacecraft, but NASA’s Lucy mission is about to change that.  Launched in 2021, Lucy will fly by five Trojan asteroids and their moons between 2027 and 2033, returning high-resolution images and compositional data.  The talk will provide a preview of what the mission will accomplish, and describe results from Lucy’s “practice” flybys of the main belt asteroids Dinkinesh and Donaldjohanson, in November 2023 and April 2025.

Bio

John Spencer is an Institute Scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, and is the Deputy Project Scientist on the Lucy Mission. He specializes in studies of small bodies in the outer solar system using ground-based telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope, and interplanetary spacecraft.  He is also a member of the science team on the Europa Clipper mission, and has worked on the science teams for the Galileo, Cassini, and New Horizons missions.   His work has included the first observations and composition measurements of Io’s volcanic plumes with Hubble, discovery that Io’s atmosphere is asymmetrical and varies seasonally, and co-discovery of cryovolcanic activity on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

“The Voyagers: Half a Century of Exploration” by Dr. Fran Bagenal

Summary:

NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft were launched in 1977 and flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Nearly half a century later, they are now about 5 times farther than Pluto from the Sun and are in the interstellar medium, having left the sphere of influence of the Sun – the Heliosphere. The Voyager mission opened our eyes to many different new worlds. This talk will present the glories of Voyager and discuss current and future exploration of the outer solar system.

Fran Bagenal Biography:

Dr. Fran Bagenal is a research scientist and professor emerita at the University of Colorado, Boulder and is co-investigator on NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Juno mission to Jupiter. Her main area of expertise is the study of charged particles trapped in planetary magnetic fields and the interaction of plasmas with the atmospheres of planetary objects, particularly in the outer solar system. 

Born and raised in the UK, Dr. Bagenal received her bachelor degree  from the University of Lancaster, England, and her doctorate degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences from MIT (Cambridge, Mass) in 1981. She has participated in several of NASA’s planetary exploration missions, including Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, Cassini, New Horizons and Juno.

https://lasp.colorado.edu/home/mop/home/people/fran_bagenal

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3293128/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Topic

“Ancient Moonwatchers” by Dr. Erica Ellingson with the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Abstract

While the monthly and yearly cycles of the moon are familiar to most modern skywatchers, the longer and more subtle “lunar standstill” cycles are more difficult to track. Ancient skywatchers from around the world may have noted the shifting positions of the moon, but the evidence is sometimes unclear.  In this talk, I’ll model how the precession of the Moon’s orbit causes small changes in the observed positions or moonrise and moonset over its 18.6 year period, and review astronomical and archaeological evidence from several sites from around the world that have been claimed as lunar standstill observatories. The most convincing is actually in SW Colorado, at Chimney Rock National Monument, and I’ll describe our activities during the current major lunar standstill season, including  moonrise events in September 2025.

Picture of the Moon at Lunar Standstill at the Chimney Rock National Monument (https://www.chimneyrockco.org/) near the Four Corners area of Colorado.

Bio

Prof. Erica Ellingson, 

Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, 

University of Colorado Boulder

Dr. Ellingson is an astrophysicist who delights in using telescopes large and small, in space and at observatories around the world. Her work includes investigating galaxy clusters, the evolution of galaxies, black holes, and the mysterious cosmological forces of dark matter and dark energy. 

Her research also includes historical and archaeo-astronomy and she is an editor with the international Journal of Skyscape Archaeology. She also teaches and produces educational programs at the Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado and is an astronomical consultant with the US National Park Service. 

Location

The meeting will be at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, CO 80501.

Topic

“Impact experiments at NASA’s Ames Vertical Gun Range” by Dr Dan Durda, SWrI

Abstract

The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) sample return mission to the near-Earth asteroid (NEA) (101955) Bennu and the Hayabusa2 mission to (162173) Ryugu offer unprecedented opportunities to gain fundamental new knowledge about the processes governing regolith formation and redistribution on small bodies.  Both asteroids display unexpected examples of small crater and boulder morphologies that raise new questions about the properties of coarse regoliths on small, primitive NEAs and processes governing the evolution of their surfaces. Experimentally documenting the range in morphology of fracture patterns of boulders in coarse regoliths and the form of small craters in coarse regoliths as a function of parameters like impact energy, depth of burial, and mechanical strength is a crucial step in the process of relating these amazing spacecraft images to the actual physical properties of these asteroids surfaces. I will share some of my results from my impact experiments at NASA’s Ames Vertical Gun Range.

Bio

Dr. Dan Durda is a principal scientist in the Department of Space Studies at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. He has more than 20 years’ experience researching the collisional and dynamical evolution of main-belt and near-Earth asteroids, Vulcanoids, Kuiper belt comets, and interplanetary dust. Dr. Durda is one of three SwRI payload specialists who fly on multiple spaceflights on commercial reusable suborbital vehicles.

Location

The meeting will be at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, CO 80501.

The next Longmont Astronomical Society’s club meeting will be on Thursday, April 24, 2025, starting at 7:00 pm. No speaker is scheduled so we’ll have open forum member presentations. LAS members are invited to give a 5 to 10 minute presentation on an astronomy related topic. 

Tell everyone about:

• An observing or imaging project that you are doing
• Good things and bad things about some equipment you have purchased
• Talk about an image you have taken – what is in it, equipment used, how you processed it
• Interesting techniques you have learned about
• Just about anything astronomy related that interests you will probably interest others as well

You may present in-person or via Zoom. Not mandatory but it would be helpful if you email Vern that you are interested in presenting and the topic before the meeting.

The meeting will be at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, CO 80501. If you cannot attend the in-person meeting, it will be available on Zoom. Video of the meeting will be available on the LAS member portal website https://members.longmontastro.org on Friday after the presentation.

Dr. Marc Buie, SWRI in Boulder will give a presentation about the Lucy Mission. The Lucy mission is a NASA space probe launched on October 16, 2021, designed to explore a group of asteroids known as the Trojan asteroids, which share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. Over its planned 12-year mission, Lucy will conduct flybys of several asteroids to gather data about the early solar system and the formation of planets.

Marc William Buie is an American astronomer and prolific discoverer of minor planets who works at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado in the Space Science Department.[ Formerly he worked at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and was the Sentinel Space Telescope Mission Scientist for the B612 Foundation, which is dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid impact events.

The meeting will be at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, CO 80501. If you cannot attend the in-person meeting, it will be available on Zoom. Marc will present in person. Video of the meeting will be available on the LAS member portal website https://members.longmontastro.org a couple days after the presentation