China Tests World's 1st Robot Ship for Launching Small Rockets
By Meghan Bartels, Senior Writer, Space.com | February 3, 2019 09:06am ET
China has built the world's first robotic, partially submersible boat for launching sounding rockets — a technology that will help meteorologists better understand the atmosphere over Earth's oceans.
Although the tests were conducted in 2016 and 2017, a paper describing the results of the first tests with the system has just been published. Traditionally, it's been difficult to study the three-quarters of the Earth's atmosphere that is found over water, because scientists have needed to do so from planes or ships, both of which make for expensive expeditions. These endeavours are also usually more vulnerable to inclement weather compared to land-based observations.
That's where China's new boat comes in. Officially classified as an "unmanned semisubmersible vehicle," the new ship is designed to sail into bad weather, deploy a sounding rocket, and gather crucial data about the atmosphere and ocean. [China in Space: The Latest Mission News]
Sounding rockets make brief flights through different layers of the atmosphere, in this case carrying meteorological equipment as high as 5 miles (8 kilometers) above the ocean.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/64671-china-robot-boat-launch-sounding-rocket.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
