Phys.org  May 1, 2018
There are fundamental questions about energy and disturbances in plasmas that require measurements at many points in time to understand. NASA is sponsoring a team developing a new type of payload to collect ionospheric plasma data at multiple points near a suborbital main payload. These low-resource, easily reproducible payloads—called Bobs—were developed for the NASA Isinglass auroral sounding rocket mission. Each payload carries two thermal ion sensors (retarding potential analyzers) as well as a small commercial inertial measurement unit like that found in a handheld video game controller… read more.
A SolidWorks image of the Bob payload with (above) and without its external housing (below). Credit: T. Max Roberts