THE GUARA CAMPAIGN - A SERIES OF ROCKET-RADAR INVESTIGATIONS OF THE EARTH UPPER-ATMOSPHERE AT THE MAGNETIC EQUATOR

The Guara Campaign consisted of a series of sounding rockets that were launched from August - October, 1994 at a new launch facility at Alca ntara, Brazil, which is within one degree of the Earth's magnetic equa tor. The campaign consisted of focused scientific experiments designed to investigate the electrodynamics and irregularities in the equatori al ionosphere and mesosphere and to study their relationship with neut ral upper atmosphere motions. In all, 13 large sounding rockets and 20 small meteorological rockets were launched as part of four different experiment groups designed to investigate: (1) the daytime equatorial electrojet, (2) very high altitude Spread-F processes, (3) sunset elec trodynamics, and (4) middle atmosphere-thermosphere coupling at the eq uator. All of the experiments utilized ground-based scientific instrum ents including a VHF backscatter radar interferometer, magnetometers, ionosondes, and scintillation receivers. The project was a joint under taking of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States and the Institute Nacional de Pesquisas Espacias (IN PE) of Brazil. The project was named the Guara Campaign after a beauti ful species of bird that is native to the equatorial region of Brazil.