A Concept of Suborbital Scientific Mission and Technology Validation

Suborbital platforms are one of alternatives for satellites. They offer cheaper access to space to perform broad range of scientific and technology R&D. One of suborbital platforms are sounding rockets, which are suitable for these applications. A concept of scientific mission utilizing the sounding rocket is presented by author in this paper. The novelty of this mission is the operational responsive launch approach, which presents the example of the mission which responds for payload user needs, not payload contest approach, which is often in scientific community competing for payload space in space agency sounding rocket launch campaigns. The main mission goal is to perform astronomical observation of NEO using IR/VIS telescope. The secondary goal is to qualify the instrument for use on astronomical satellite observatory and raise its technology readiness level from TRL 6 to TRL 8. The expected mission output is to gain scientific data on NEO object and perform new IR/VIS optoelectronic instrument technology validation.