WOOMERA, Australia, Oct 26 -- A United States Black Brant 1X rocket has been successfully launched from the Woomera weapons testing range in South Australia, the Australian Space Office said Thursday. A spokesman said the rocket was successfully launched at 10.43 p.m. Wednesday, detecting an invisible target that covers one-eighth of the sky -- a superbubble of hot gas called Loop-1.
He said the succesful 15 minute experiment took an X-ray snapshot to measure Loop-1 temperature, chemical composition and density. One of the goals of this first in a proposed series of six launches, was to discover how the edge of a superbubble interacts with the interstellar medium and to understand the physical processes when a gas is heated to such extremes, he said. The Australian Space Office, in co-operation with the Department of Defense, is collaborating with the NASA project team to ensure the success of the experimental launches. The Sounding Rocket program is being managed by the NASA Wallops Flight facility. The team of NASA and U.S. University personnel have been at the Woomera Range since early October conducting the payload integration for this first launch. The program's Black Brant 1X is a two-stage rocket capable of carrying sub-orbital payloads to altitudes of 310 miles (500 km). The Sounding Rocket launch will be followed by another five from Woomera, over the next four weeks.
