RTS professionals support NASA mission

REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – A U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command team played an important behind-the-scenes role in supporting NASA’s Sporadic-E Electro Dynamics sounding rocket mission.

NASA launched a Sporadic-E Electro Dynamics, or SEED, sounding rocket from Roi Namur, Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands during a test June 20. During the mission, SEED was tracked by sensors at Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, or RTS, at Kwajalein.

“It’s been a privilege for SMDC and the Reagan Test Site to support NASA’s SEED missions here on the Kwajalein Atoll,” said Army Lt. Col. Casey Rumfelt, RTS range director. “Our role is to provide the precision tracking, telemetry and safety oversight that enable these cutting-edge atmospheric and ionospheric science missions to succeed. Supporting partners like NASA isn’t just a technical responsibility, it’s a commitment to advancing global scientific understanding, one mission at a time.”

As a Department of Defense Major Test Range Facility Base, RTS radars, imaging systems, data collection capabilities, and personnel have supported hundreds of missile tests ranging from validation of concepts and designs for intercontinental ballistic missiles to anti-satellite systems to ballistic missile defense systems for more than 50 years.

“These collaborations reflect the unique capabilities of RTS and the incredible professionalism of our workforce,” Rumfelt said. “From engineers and radar crews to mission planners and logistics staff, together we make world-class science possible from one of the most remote launch sites on Earth.”

Reagan Test Site’s two tracking radars, ARPA Long-Range Tracking and Instrumentation Radar, or ALTAIR, and Target Resolution and Discrimination Experiment, or TRADEX, support tests, as well as the two imaging radars, the ARPA Lincoln C-Band Observables Radar, or ALCOR, and the Millimeter Wave, or MMW.

The RTS Operation Center – Huntsville, or ROC-H, provided command and control for the test mission despite being more than 6,500 miles from Kwajalein, which is located halfway between Hawaii and Australia. ROC-H is the mission control center for RTS. All the radars at RTS are controlled and operated from ROC-H.

The optics and telemetry sites on Kwajalein Atoll are managed by the controllers in ROC-H. The data upon mission completion is sent to ROC-H for analysis and distribution to the customer.

Michael Savage, RTS’ SEED range control officer, said RTS provides NASA with launch location and support services on Roi Island, Kwajalein Atoll that allows them to safely launch two sounding rockets into the broad ocean area where they plan to measure upper air atmospheric conditions utilizing the suite of RTS instrumentation. The objective of the NASA SEED mission is to collect the first simultaneous multipoint spatial and temporal observations of low-latitude Sporadic-E layers.

He added this will be accomplished with a range of onboard instrumentation and Tri-Methyl Aluminum, or TMA, puff releases. After release of the TMA, the thermosphere winds will be measured by optically tracking the TMA clouds via camera sites deployed at Kwajalein, Roi-Namur, and Rongelap.

“The ultimate goal of these collections is to characterize and predict ionospheric disturbances that could disrupt the communication paths from earth ground stations and devices to satellites causing outages in communications,” Savage said. “If we were able to predict when and where these outages could occur, alternate communication paths could be established. NASA has conducted these types of experiments around the world, including multiple experiments done in the RMI, to help characterize and predict ionospheric disturbances.”

Savage said RTS utilizes four telemetry ground stations, two on Roi-Namur and two on Kwajalein, to collect health and status of the sounding rocket and payload. The primary purpose of this data is to provide the Principal Investigator with the diagnostic data downlinked from the payload which is used to characterize the ionospheric environment.

RTS also provides mandatory scan data, both UHF and VHF, from the ALTAIR large beam radar on Roi-Namur characterizing the ionospheric disturbances in the upper atmosphere due to solar activity.

He said three transponder tracking radars, ALCOR, and two MPS-36 radars, are utilized to track the main rocket body and payload in the event of loss of telemetry data and this data is utilized to measure and predict the trajectory of all objects from launch to impact in the broad ocean area.

“RTS has supported NASA in these science experiments to provide for long term solutions to communication outages due to ionospheric disturbances,” Savage said. The unique location of Kwajalein offers NASA the opportunity to launch sounding rockets near the equator, and characterize upper atmospheric disturbances. In partnership with NASA, RTS supports the advancement of science and its application to improving communications systems around the world.”