Further Assessment of Infrared Data From Aircraft and Rocket Probes

Measurements from an aircraft and rockets of the yield of 2.8-3.1 micrometers-band photons from air irradiated by ionizing particles are evaluated. The night-time column emission in aurora, viewed from below by a sensitive radiometer with less than 1 km field of view, is found to be temporally-spatially correlated with the column energy input to within a few sec and a few km. The 'equilibrium' chemiluminous efficiency in the SWIR band, measured with lower-resolution instruments in several hr of flight, shows statistically-significant variations of about a factor two (data from 1976 missions, reported in HAES 79, lie in a narrower range). Its mean value is very near that expected from laboratory and HAES rocket measurements. Altitude profiles of the SWIR photon yield from two DNA/AFGL rockets have a pronounced minimum near 110 km altitude, qualitatively similar to that predicted by models of collisional quenching of vibrationally-excited nitric oxide molecules by oxygen atoms. Preliminary results of the aircraft's photometric (including airglow-sensitive video) and radiometric measurements on the ionospheric plasma depleton produced by release of H2 and H20 from an Atlas Centaur rocket engine are presented.