A SHOT IN THE DARK: Part VII

A SHOT IN THE DARK

Chasing the aurora from the world’s northernmost rocket range

Part VII
I​ • II •​ ​III •​ IV •​ ​V •​ VI​ •​ VII

Three months later, the science team convened at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Button-up shirts replaced down coats, their hair not ruffled from beanies and headlamps. But the mood, an eagerness to proceed, remained. Even Zaccarine — back at school and unable to make the meeting — had spent the past months helping with designs for a new instrument. It would fly on the next mission, VISIONS-3.

The next two days were filled with discussion. Each team member presented their preliminary findings, sharing open questions with the group. Each of the 11 instruments onboard captured a different part of the picture; the findings of one could often explain anomalies in the other. But telling the whole story would require many more meetings like this one.

Pfaff was the last to present, sharing the results from his electric fields experiment before departing for another meeting. The remaining members gathered around a table in Rowland’s new office, to which he had just moved after returning from Ny-Ålesund. By his estimates, Rowland would spend the next year or two here, in front of a computer screen under fluorescent lighting, analyzing data from that 15-minute rocket flight. Around him were mostly the familiar knick-knacks of his old office — books about physics, family pictures, academic regalia. Just to the right of his desk, second shelf from the bottom, was a new trinket. It was a small triangle, outlined in red, framing the silhouette of a polar bear.♦

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