The Beginning of CEDEA (“EL ARENOSILLO” Experimentation Center). Technical and Scientific Accomplishments
- Paper number
IAC-06-E4.4.01
- Author
Dr. Alvaro Azcarraga, SENER Ingeneria y Sistemas, S.A., Spain
- Coauthor
Dr. Luis V. Sanchez-Muniosguren, Spain
- Year
2006
- Abstract
In 1964, CONIE (Comisión Nacional de Investigación del Espacio) decided to promote and fund the research of the upper atmosphere. The immediate goal was to study the stratosphere and lower mesosphere with sounding rockets. INTA was given this task, and a cooperative program with NASA was established. In order to fulfil the mission, INTA undertook three main actions: to select and train the personnel, to choose the place where the launching range was to be set up, and install it and, finally, to get the necessary equipment and consumable materials. We delineate the beginning of the activities at “El Arenosillo” during the first campaign (October 14th to December 9th, 1966), paying special attention to the limited resources, problems faced, promising results and high spirit of the human team. Collaborations with the Max-Planck Institut für Aeronomie, Institut d’aéronomie spatiale de Belgique and Centre Nationale d’Etudes Spatiales were soon established, and cooperation with NASA was extended. The collaboration with Spanish institutions, such as Servicio Meteorológico Nacional and Observatorio del Ebro, was also enlarged. Since 1968, the facilities and activities of the launching range increased continuously. Different types of rockets and payloads were used to measure characteristics of the atmosphere up to 150 km altitude. It is also noticeable the installation of ground equipment for the continuous recording of neutral and ionospheric parameters of the atmosphere. Besides the technical work, one significant part of the paper is devoted to relate the scientific work carried out to plan some experiments, to study obtained data and send it to the World Data Centres and, finally, to prepare scientific papers to be presented to the scientific community in congresses and publications. Among these scientific works, a special attention is paid to the study of yearly winds in the stratosphere, with emphasis in the sudden warming and an original and unique experiment to study the tidal waves in the mesosphere by means of the launching of 27 Skua II rockets during 4 days up to 100 km. Such papers, still valid today, contribute substantially to Part 2 of COSPAR International Reference Atmosphere 1972 (Atmospheric structure and its variations in the region from 25 to 120 km) and to the knowledge of the interaction between neutral gas winds and the D-layer of the ionosphere. The authors present this paper as a tribute to all the extraordinary persons who made possible, forty years ago, the settlement and success of “El Arenosillo”.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-06-E4.4.01.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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