Abstract
The POLAR 5 sounding rocket, launched from Andøya, Norway, on February 1, 1976, was of the “mother-daughter” configuration. A rocket-borne electron accelerator, mounted on the “daughter,” produced a pulsed electron beam with a maximum current of 130 mA and electron energies up to 10 kev. Using a photometer the luminescence at 391.4nm produced by electrons colliding with ambient nitrogen molecules was studied. The observed light at 391.4 nm consisted of low background, with occasional flashes due to the natural auroral excitations, and intense sparkles when the electron beam was emitted. Below 130 km the light observed during beam injection can be explained by excitations of ambient N 2 due to high energy beam electrons. In the altitude range from 150 km to apogee at 220 km, the observed light level during beam emission is fairly constant and much larger than that produced by the high energy beam electrons. A possible source of this light is the excitation of ambient N 2 by an enhanced population of low energy electrons, created by the presence of a beam plasma discharge in the vicinity of the “daughter” payload.
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