User:Cerejota/Student Nitric Oxide Explorer

The Student Nitric Oxide Explorer (SNOE) was a small earth orbiting atmospheric research NASA spacecraft, launched on February 26, 1998, and destroyed upon re-entering the earth's atmosphere on December 13, 2003. Its objective was a detailed study of variations in nitric oxides (NOx) in the Earth's atmosphere. NOx strongly affects the ion composition of the ionosphere and the thermal structure of the thermosphere. The density of NOx in the lower thermosphere may be correlated with variations in solar soft X-radiation.

SNOE was the first satellite launched in NASA's Student Explorer Demonstration Initiative (STEDI) program. The SNOE was built at the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. It was lifted into space along with the Teledesic T1 ("BATSAT") satellite, using a Pegasus stratospheric launching system.

Instruments
SNOE carried three instruments aboard:
 * 1) an ultraviolet spectrometer to measure nitric oxide altitude profiles,
 * 2) a two-channel auroral photometer to measure auroral emissions beneath the spacecraft, and
 * 3) a five-channel solar soft X-ray photometer.

Mission
The limb-scanning ultraviolet spectrometer on SNOE observed polar mesospheric clouds.

SNOE has helped CU-Boulder scientists and students map the effect of global X-rays on the atmosphere.

Enhanced fluxes of solar soft X-rays have been detected by the SNOE satellite. Solar soft X-ray irradiance is measured by the solar X-ray photometer (SXP) from 2 to 20 nm. The measurements do not cover solar minimum or maximum conditions. For the 2–7 nm wavelength range, the solar soft X-ray irradiance ranged upwards from 0.3 mW m-2 to ~ 1.5 mW m-2. The 6–19 nm range yielded 0.5 to ~2.1 mW m-2. These values are about a factor of 2 or more higher than predicted by current models.