The SLED experiment consists of the Rocket Mounted Unit, RMU, and two Free-Falling Units, FFUs. One FFU is the Transmitting Unit, Tx, and the other is the Receiving Unit, Rx. Both consist of one Common Unit, CU, mounted on a Specific Unit, SU.

 

The RMU will eject the two FFUs simultaneously at a prescribed altitude and angle to the sun. Once ejected, the two FFUs work autonomously during their high altitude free fall. The TxSU emits both red LED and infrared light but is otherwise passive. The RxSU tracks the Tx by following the LED light and captures the intensity of the incoming IR light. Two degrees of freedom are achieved by means of a tilting mirror and despin of the SU relative to the CU. Both SUs shut down after 5 minutes. Meanwhile, both CUs collect position data throughout the flight. At 5 km altitude they also each deploy a parachute and broadcast their respective location for safe recovery.

 

The data will be collected and analyzed. We then hope to reconstruct the flight trajectory and examine the functionality of the tracking system. The intensity of the incoming IR light will be used to determine the carbon dioxide concentration at various altitudes by means of spectroscopy.