UAH team helping Japanese space program launch safely

hugh-christianHUNTSVILLE, Ala. (Feb. 2, 2012) -- A team of scientists from The University of Alabama in Huntsville's Earth System Science Center (ESSC) is working with the Japanese space agency to develop new rules to protect spacecraft from lightning.


A problem, according to Hugh Christian, an ESSC principal research scientist, is that when the Japanese apply NASA's rules for launch safety to their climatological conditions, they find those rules to be very restrictive.

"For instance, NASA has what is called the 'thick cloud rule,'" he said. "Basically, any cloud above the freezing level that's 4,000 or more feet thick will stop a launch. Well, those kinds of clouds are very common during Japan's winter launch window, and it it quite quite probable that in most cases those clouds are only very weakly electrified and pose no threat to launch safety.





The six instruments installed on the business-size jet are electric field mills, which measure the atmosphere's static electrical field. Flying them through a cloud or storm can tell the UAH team how much of a lightning threat that system presents.

