The Role of the Skylark Sounding Rocket in Astrophysical and Geophysical Research

In 1957, well before the launch of Sputnik, the UK launched a research vehicle called Skylark which offered an opportunity for new science investigations from a space platform and a remarkably productive training ground for future space scientists. More than 400 were launched over the following 47 years. This meeting sets out to review the history of the Skylark sounding rocket, how it was used and the science it enabled.

Programme:

Morning Session: Chair Mike Cruise

10.30-11.00 Doug Millard (Science Museum London): Space Science in the 1950s: What were the challenges and options in addressing science questions just after the war?

11.00-11.30 Robin Brand (New Forest Electronics): The Skylark Rocket: How did the Skylark rocket get developed and how was it used?

11.30-12.00 David Rees (The Paradigm Factor Ltd): The contribution made to Geophysics and Solar Terrestrial Physics by Skylark experiments.

12.00-12.30 Ken Pounds (University of Leicester): The contribution made to Astronomy by Skylark experiments

12.30-13.30 Lunch (Not provided but available locally around Piccadilly)

Afternoon Session: Chair John Zarnecki

13.30 -13.45 Mike Cruise ( University of Birmingham): The Australian environment for Skylark

13.45-14.00 Ian Tuohy:  Australian University Involvement in Skylark

14.00 -15.00 Short contributions from Skylark users (up to 10 mins each, plus a few slides?)

15.00-15.30 John Zarnecki (Open University): Summary and Closing remarks

Note: We invite previous users of Skylark to attend and make a short presentation in the session from 14.00 to 15.00. These contributions should be less than 10 minutes and a few PowerPoint slides. If attendees wish to display small Skylark artefacts (not containing pyrotechnics, please), that would be interesting. Those wishing to make a short contribution should contact the organisers before January 15^th, by email to both organisers.

Organisers: Prof Mike Cruise (cruiseam1@gmail.com) and Prof John Zarnecki (John.Zarnecki@open.ac.uk.)