data of nonlinear excitation of plasma waves caused by the strong microwave energy beam. The other is to measure the possible electron heating and associated phenomena, such as density depletion, caused by the microwave transmission. Both the plasma wave excitation and density modulation of the ionosphere by the SPS microwave may affect the short wave communications and may result in a strong modification of the natural ionospheric and magnetospheric plasma environment of the Earth. In order to obtain as quantitative data as possible on such effects, we transmitted a microwave energy beam with a frequency 2.45 GHz and a power density of the order of 230 watt/m2. Those values are the same as the frequency and power density planned for the future SPS. EXPERIMENTAL INSTRUMENTS The MINIX was performed by a mother-and-daughter rocket. The payload section is divided into two parts, mother and daughter, as illustrated in Fig. 1, which shows a test scenery of the payload final check at the launching site at Kagoshima Space Center of ISAS, located at Uchinoura in Kyushu Island. The mother part contains the power supply composed of a DC-battery and DC-DC converter, the microwave transmitter composed of the magnetrons with a controller, two sets of truncated wave-guide antennas, a Langmuir probe for the measurement of electron temperature and density, wide band telemetry set, a neutral gas plume which is capable of emitting a neutral nitrogen gas, and a TV monitor camera which was used to monitor the separation of the mother and daughter rocket. The configuration of
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==