EXAMINATION OF THEORY FOR BOW SHOCK ULTRAVIOLET ROCKET EXPERIMENTS .2.

In this article the radiation model, NEQAIR, used to calculate the mid -uv radiance for Bow Shock 1 and 2 night conditions, is examined in de tail. An approximate equation for the upper state NO population is der ived that explains the density dependence of the calculations and sens itivity to changes in specific rates. Estimated neutral collisional ex citation rates are replaced with rates based on experiment. For condit ions cor-responding to the two flights, the radiation obtained with an explicit treatment of the electronic excitation process was similar t o that obtained from the original model. For the first time, we also t est the validity of the quasi-steady-state assumption in these rarefie d flows. We find that the quasi-steady-state distribution of electroni c states of NO is valid for these flow conditions.