Development and preliminary testing of a temporally controllable weather modification rocket with spatial seeding capacity

Abstract. Current weather modification rockets with a single operation mode, limited operating height, and fixed and uncontrollable operating time cannot achieve seeding in different layers, stages, and quantities for different cloud systems. Therefore, a temporally controllable weather modification rocket with spatial seeding capability is developed in this study. This new rocket features an electronic fuse-controlled intelligent ignition system, with eight channels of ignition tube outputs. Additionally, carrier wave communication technology is incorporated to set the seeding time for eight sets of ignition tubes. The temporally controllable rocket is capable of initiating seeding within 2–26 s and can conduct operations for layering, arbitrary altitude, and fractional-dose seeding within the altitude range of 500–5500 m (at a launch angle of 70°), which is calculated based on the flight trajectory of rockets. The minimum time interval of the rocket for seeding can be set to 0.1 s, and all 48 catalyst bullets loaded in a single rocket can be launched within 0.8 s. Thus, the rocket can achieve both concentrated and continuous seeding. Consequently, during weather modification operations, the parameters such as altitude, thickness, and operating temperature of target clouds can be obtained through detection, and they can be used to automatically calculate the suitable seeding time, seeding altitude, and seeding dose by the launch control system based on the flight trajectory of rockets to improve the accuracy and scientificity of cloud catalytic operations. Ground tests show that the reliabilities of the electric ignition tube output, new electronic fuse input and output, and electronic fuse output energy all meet the design specification. The temporally controllable spatial seeding rocket can achieve adjustable and controllable seeding times for catalytic bullets, meeting the safety and reliability requirements of rockets.