Wallops Flight Facility

Contributions

Balloon missions have contributed in essential ways to Scientific Spacecraft Missions.

WMAP

NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) instruments all developed from balloon-flight instruments.
Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) balloon flights in the late 80's and 90's laid the critical ground work for the design of Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
Detectors on the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) mission were first developed and demonstrated on balloon-borne instruments.
The scintillating fiber trajectory detector on the NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) Cosmic Ray Isotope Spectrometer was demonstrated first in a balloon flight.
On NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS-Aura) satellite, the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS), the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES), and High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS), these instruments all trace their heritage to instruments that first flew on balloons.