The Caper (Cleft Accelerated Plasma Experimental Rocket) was part of a joint US-Norwegian research project.

The rocket was a joint US-Norwegian project

The four-stage rocket lifted off at 0613 GMT from the Scandinavian country's Andøya Island base to a height of 1,360 km (850 miles), about 20 km higher than predicted.

"Scientific conditions were ideal and all instruments aboard worked as they should. From our point of view this was a perfect launch," said Paul Kintner, Professor and Associate Director of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University.

It will take some months to process the data collected from the flight. The Northern Lights (aurora borealis) are produced when charged particles coming the sun interact with the Earth's magnetic field. Drawn into the polar regions, these particles bombard the atoms in the atmosphere, causing them to emit colourful light.

Electrical problems

The phenomenon can cause major electrical problems for orbiting satellites and equipment down on Earth. In 1989, a major solar storm caused electricity blackouts across Canada and north-eastern USA.

But researchers would also like to understand how excited ions escape from the Earth's atmosphere because of the interactions that take place

Ions from the atmosphere can be lost to space

"All instruments on the payload functioned nominally and the initial data analysis indicated that the payload encountered multiple auroral arcs, regions of accelerated ions, and strong electric field activity," a release from the rocket range said.

Caper was funded by NASA and launched in collaboration with the Norwegian Space Agency, Andøya Rocket Range, University at Svalbard (UNIS) and the University of Oslo.