The infrasonic signature of three exceptional rocket launches Free

Infrasound from rocket launches, including lift-off, flight and sonic boom signals, can be detected at infrasound arrays hundreds to thousands of kilometers away. Microbarometer arrays, which are part of the International Monitoring System (IMS) for monitoring compliance with the Comprehensive nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, are used to identify and characterize rocket launch infrasound. Three extraordinary cases of interest of the years 2021 to 2023 are investigated, including the first successful airborne space mission of Virgin Orbit’s Launcher One in 2021, the first test flight around the moon of NASA’s Artemis 1 Space Launch System in 2022 and the last integrated flight test of SpaceX’s Starship in 2023. IMS infrasound arrays in the United States and the Caribbean were able to observe these rocket launches. These observations provide detailed information about acoustic signals emitted during at least three different flight stages identified for each launch and propagated through the atmosphere to the stations. The detection and characterization of rocket infrasound provides valuable insights on the detection of surface and airborne signals using infrasound arrays. These signals are comparable to large atmospheric explosions and are therefore useful as ground-truth sources for estimating the detection capability of the IMS infrasound network.