NASA will launch a University of Colorado experiment to image the sun on a NASA suborbital sounding rocket February 23, from the White Sands Missile Range, N.M.

The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) will support measurements by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite.

EVE is headed by Dr. Thomas Woods of the University of Colorado Boulder and will provide flight calibration for the EVE instrument on the SDO satellite that was launched Feb. 11, 2010. The data gathered will allow engineers and scientists to calibrate the instruments aboard the SDO.

The EVE experiment will be launched on NASA Black Brant IX two-stage suborbital sounding rocket. The rocket will reach an apogee of approximately 186 miles, 279 seconds into the flight.

NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program is managed at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Information on the NASA Sounding Rocket Program is available on the Internet at: http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code810

Information on the EVE is available on the Internet at: http://lasp.colorado.edu/eve/