The LAMP mission, short for Loss through Auroral Microburst Pulsations, launched at 2:27 a.m. Alaska Standard time (6:27 a.m. EST) Saturday, Mar. 5, 2022, on a Black Brant IX suborbital sounding rocket. The rocket launched to a nominal apogee and the principal investigator confirmed that good data was received from the experiment. 

The mission team includes Allison Jaynes, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and LAMP co-investigator and graduate student Riley Troyer.

The mission hopes to understand an often overlooked kind of aurora, called a pulsating aurora, and to test a theory on what causes them.

The LAMP mission is an international collaboration with contributions from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Dartmouth College, University of New Hampshire, and University of Iowa, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Tohoku University, Nagoya University, and Kyutech in Japan.

For more information, see these stories and the LAMP web page:

• NASA Rocket Team to Chase Pulsating Aurora

• UI team heads to Alaska to launch rocket into the Northern Lights

• NASA rocket launches from Alaska in search of aurora answers