SNIFS Rocket
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snifs-rocket.bsky.social
SNIFS Rocket
@snifs-rocket.bsky.social
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Account for the SNIFS sounding rocket, built by LASP @ CU Boulder. Run by the SNIFS team

Launch info
When: Friday, July 18th 1pm MDT / 3pm EDT
Location: White Sands Missile Range
Livestream video: https://video.ibm.com/wstf-wsmr (starts 30 min before)
Posts Replies Media Videos
snifs-rocket.bsky.social
Data from today's cooling test. Along the y-axis is temperature (in degrees C) and the x-axis is time (in minutes) counting up from the start of the test. The heatsink (green) which is directly cooled by the liquid nitrogen cools quickly, while the two detectors (blue and orange) cool slower. (1/3)
A graph titled "temperatures." The x-axis is time, in mins and spans from 0 to 146. The y-axis is temperature, in degs C, and spans from 30 to -50. The graph has three colored lines on it, indicating the temperature of detector A, B and the heatsink. All three lines are roughly flat until +24 mins when the heatsink starts to experience cooling at a rate of -2.46 deg C/min. At roughly 42 mins, cooling stopped and the heatsink temperature started to rise. From that point onwards the heatsink temperature slowly oscillates around -35C as we toggle on and off the cooling. Both detectors start showing a drop from their starting 25C at 26mins, and cool with a far lower slope (-0.246 C/min). Detector A is about 3C to 8C warmer than B at all times, due to its longer heat strap. Both detectors reach the target of 0C at 60mins.
July 17, 2025 at 8:05 PM
snifs-rocket.bsky.social
In the image below, we see that the upper legs of the magnetic loops are full of plasma. When reconnection happens, the upper legs connect to each other and form a bubble of hot plasma. The energy release shoots that bubble out from the Sun and into the solar system.
7/n
A diagram showing a CME at 3 stages of evolution. The first shows the surface of the sun with a filament containing plasma. Magnetic loops surround it. The second shows that the filament of plasma has moved upwards and the surrounding loops are bowing inward where they're stretched out underneath, looking almost like a balloon or inverted water droplet. The point where the loops almost touch is marked with a red star labeled "Magnetic Reconnection". The third stage shows the bubble of fillament plasma has moved up and away from the sun and is labeled "outer shell with reconnected magnetic flux plasma". The loops stretching back downwards are greyed out and very long now. Below them we see a few small arches of magnetic field labeled "post eruption arcade"
July 12, 2025 at 5:08 PM
snifs-rocket.bsky.social
A close up look at our primary mirror, the first optical element in the SNIFS instrument. At 11 inches in diameter, it is the largest of our optics.

Located above it, the light baffle is inscribed with the names of those who have contributed to the project.
An image looking at the circular primary mirror of the SNIFS payload. It is mounted on the 17 inch diameter bulkhead. Above it, the front bench holds a flat, rectangular light baffle, inscribed with the names of project contributors. To the right side of the front bench, the pointing camera is visible, used to aim the payload towards targets of interest during flight.
July 11, 2025 at 9:29 PM
snifs-rocket.bsky.social
What's in an instrument?

Here's a picture of the SNIFS instrument, with the cylindrical outer walls removed for access.

The left half is the telescope section. It contains the primary mirror (just to the left of the purple strap), the secondary mirror (the square at the end of the long ribbed 1/n
A photo of a large (4 ft long, 2 ft across) scientific instrument strapped down to a table. Dividing it in 2 is a round bulkhead (seen in profile) which is tied down to a table with a purple strap. On the left side is a ridged diving board-like structure sticking out about 2 feet from the top of the bulkhead. It's holding a small square mirror at its end. There are also a bunch of wires strapped to its sides. On the righthand side of the central bulkhead is another diving board optical bench, this one much more chunky and attached to the lower half of the bulkhead. It has 5 mirrors on mounts sticking up from its surface, as well as 2 detectors with metal plates taped over them at the end. A yellow line zig zags between mirrors showing the optical path. After the final bounce it splits into a rainbow to land on the detector. The background is a lab with black walls and a large tent of clear plastic covers the entire experiment and the table.
July 11, 2025 at 5:10 PM