Large electric potential perturbations in PMSE during DROPPS

Comprehensive vector electric field detectors were flown during the DROPPS rocket experiment to study electrodynamic processes near the mesopause. Thi s paper will discuss the first DROPPS rocket flight, which penetrated a str ong polar mesosphere summer echo (PMSE) event that also included a weak noc tilucent cloud (NLC) layer. During this flight, strong potential perturbati ons were observed which at first appeared to be caused by large geophysical electric fields. However, as shown here, the potential perturbations resul ted from the rocket wake, and were not caused by an environmental electric field. This result strongly differs from other previous in-situ experiments , which have reported large electric fields in PMSE regions.