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SNOE

Student Nitric Oxide Explorer

Student-led mission to explore Earth's mesosphere and lower thermosphere

The Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE) measured nitric oxide density in the Earth’s lower thermosphere and analyzed how the Sun and the Earth’s magnetosphere affect its abundance. Under the supervision of LASP and industry mentors, University of Colorado students worked on the design, built the spacecraft and instruments, wrote the flight software, integrated and tested the instruments and subsystems, and integrated with the launch vehicle, and analyzed the mission data.

Mission Class:

Larger Missions

Mission Status:

Past

LASP Roles:

Research, Instruments, Data, Mission Operations, Lead Institute

Science Target:

Sun, Earth's Atmosphere

Mission Focus:

Climate, Earth's Atmosphere, Mesosphere, Solar Irradiance, Thermosphere

Primary Mission Site:

https://lasp.colorado.edu/snoe/

Launch Date: February 25, 1998
Decommission Date: December 13, 2003
Mission Duration: 5 years

Lead Institution: LASP

Lead Funding Agency: NASA & USRA

Partners: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center,
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Nitric oxide is an important minor constituent of the upper atmosphere that exhibits strong solar-terrestrial coupling. Nitric oxide directly affects the composition of the ionosphere, the thermal structure of the thermosphere, and may be transported downward into the mesosphere and stratosphere where it can react with ozone. However, significant unanswered questions about nitric oxide remain. The scientific objectives of the Student Nitric Oxide Explorer were:

To determine how variations in the solar soft X-radiation produce changes in the density of nitric oxide in the lower thermosphere
To determine how auroral activity produces increased nitric oxide in the polar regions

SNOE was also able to capture global measurements of Polar Mesospheric Clouds.

LASP provided the three instruments:

The ultraviolet spectrometer (UVS)
A two-channel auroral photometer (AP)
A five-channel solar soft X-ray photometer (SXP)

SXP

Solar X-ray Photometer

AP

Auroral Photometer

UVS

Ultraviolet Spectrometer