The SAL sounding rocket was one in a series of 11 small rocket launches funded by NASA's Atmospheric Study Program to improve radio and satellite communications by learning more about how such systems are disrupted by "space weather.'' Space weather results from the interactions of the Sun's and Earth's magnetic fields, a "plasma'' of electrically charged particles spewed from the Sun, and gases and dust in Earth's upper atmosphere.
The rocket's mission was to investigate the phenomenon of sporadic sodium layers (NaS), thin layers (1 km) of neutral atomic metal which form in the Earth's mesosphere at altitudes near 95 km. The SAL payload was instrumented to characterize the electrodynamics and chemistry of these layers. Instruments included a fast temperature probe measuring the electron temperature, plasma frequency and DC probes measuring the absolute electron density, a positive ion mass spectrometer, sodium and potassium lamps and photometers measuring neutral atom abundance near the payload, electric field booms, and a charged dust detector.
SAL launched from the El Tortuguero Launch Facility, near Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, on 19 February 1998.
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