Sounding rocket

<p>A sounding rocket or rocketsonde, sometimes called a research rocket or a suborbital rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its <a href="/facts/Sub-orbital_spaceflight/NdLRlGIq">sub-orbital</a> flight. The rockets are often used to launch instruments from 48 to 145 km (30 to 90 mi) above the surface of the Earth, the altitude generally between <a href="/facts/Weather_balloon/yYenKMYA">weather balloons</a> and <a href="/facts/Satellite/PTX8c68t">satellites</a>; the maximum altitude for balloons is about 40 km (25 mi) and the minimum for satellites is approximately 121 km (75 mi).
</p><p>Due to their suborbital flight profile, sounding rockets are often much simpler than their counterparts built for orbital flight. Certain sounding rockets have an <a href="/facts/Apogee/MSHAk1RU">apogee</a> between 1,000 and 1,500 km (620 and 930 mi), such as the <a href="/facts/Black_Brant_(rocket)/mxjN9D4v">Black Brant X and XII</a>, which is the maximum apogee of their class. For certain purposes, sounding rockets may be flown to altitudes as high as 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles) to allow observing times of around 40 minutes to provide geophysical observations of the magnetosphere, ionosphere, thermosphere, and mesosphere.
</p>

Sounding rocket open-in-new

Sounding rocket