National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Goddard Space Flight Center
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Balloon Program Office
Operations
Mission Location: Fort Sumner, New Mexico
Flight Season: Aug - Oct, every year
Campaign Duration: July - Oct
Launch Time: Morning
Trajectory: West / East / Turnaround
Balloon Type: Zero Pressure
Max Science Mass: 6000 lbs
30.019 BALloon-Based Observations for Sunlit Aurora (BALBOA)
Mission description:
The objective of BALBOA is to develop balloon-borne InGaAs cameras for measuring dayside and sunlit auroras and studying the dayside and global solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere interaction. This will be a long duration precursor to an Antarctic future Antarctic mission.
Institution: University of California, Los Angeles
Desired Float Conditions: No Preference
Desired Float Duration: 20 hours (min 5 hours)
Desired Float Altitude: Above 40 km (min 35 km)
30.006 Balloon-Borne Cryogenic Telescope Testbed (BOBCAT) 2
Mission description:
Atmospheric emission limits instrumental sensitivity at far-infrared (IR) wavelengths. BOBCAT develops technology for a balloon platform to improve far-IR sensitivity by a factor of 100,000 compared to ground-based or airborne (SOFIA) facilities. BOBCAT is a proof-of-principle demonstration for ultra-light balloon dewars. It will validate the construction techniques and in-flight operations and characterize the cryogenic performance of the dewar at float. (newer version of BOBCAT-1)
Institution: NASA GSFC / WFF
Desired Float Conditions: No preference
Desired Float Duration: 2-4 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 120,000 ft (min 90,000 ft)
30.008R2 Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) Test Flight(TF) Mullenax
Mission description:
The Mullenax Test Flight 1 is being utilized to validate pre-flight balloon performance simulation of a balloon's performance and support piggybacks missions as necessary.
Institution: CSBF
Desired Float Conditions: No preference
Desired Float Duration: 12 hours (min 4 hours)
Desired Float Altitude: 35 km (min 30 km)
30.009R1 - Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) Test Flight(TF) Salter
Mission description:
Test and validate LDB and CSBF subsystems, support piggybacks as necessary. Main Objectives: Raise TRL, Verify system design in flight.
Institution: CSBF
Desired Float Conditions: Conventional conditions
Desired Float Duration: 4-6 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 100,000 ft (min 90,000 ft)
30.003 Faint Intergalactic Redshifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall-2)
Mission description:
Searching the circum-galactic medium, a combination of inflowing pristine gas from the intergalactic medium and out-flowing metal rich gases from galactic supernovae and other high energy events. Observations are taken through a spectral window in the 195-210nm range that becomes transparent at balloon altitudes greater or equal to 120,000 ft.
Institution: California Institute of Technology
Desired Float Conditions: Night-time launch
Desired Float Duration: 4-6 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 132,000 ft (min 120,000 ft)
0.004R1 High Altitude Student Platform (HASP)
Mission description:
HASP is a collaborative effort between Louisiana Space Grant Consortium at Louisiana State University (LaSPACE - LSU), NASA Balloon Program Office (BPO) and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) to develop and operate an inexpensive platform that can be used to flight test compact satellites, prototypes and other small payloads designed and built by students. The HASP is designed to carry up to twelve student payloads at a time to an altitude of about 120,000 feet with flight durations of 15 to 20 hours
Institution: Louisiana State University
Desired Float Conditions: No preference
Desired Float Duration: 10-20 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 120,000 ft (min 100,000 ft)
30.005 Planetary Imaging Concepts Testbed Using a Recoverable Experiment- Coronagraph (Picture-C)
Mission description:
PICTURE-C will take the next steps along the road to characterizing Earth like planets, in Earth like orbits, orbiting Sun like stars. It will demonstrate a high altitude balloon based clear aperture telescope with low order wavefront control (LOWC; Mendillo es al., 2012a), provide a flight demonstration of a high performance vector vortex coronagraph (VVC; Mawet et al., 2001b), and raise the TRL of an integral field detector, the Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detector (MKID; Mazin et al., 2012), These technologies ( LOWC, VVC, and MKID) have been developed under NASA funding; this effort will move them from ground based telescopes to flight systems.
Institution: UMass Lowell
Desired Float Conditions: Night-time launch
Desired Float Duration: 6-12 hours
Desired Float Altitude: > 105,000 ft
30.007R1 Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER)
Mission description:
PIPER is a balloon-borne instrument to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) in search of primordial gravitational waves created in an inflationary epoch in the early universe. It consists of twin mm-wave telescopes cooled to nearly absolute zero within a large liquid helium dewar. PIPER's fast scan speed and unique polarization modulation allow it to survey half the sky in a single flight to measure the inflationary signal on the largest angular scales.
Institution: NASA GSFC / WFF
Desired Float Conditions: Evening Launch preference
Desired Float Duration: 4-8 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 120,000 ft (min 90,000 ft)
10.005 TinMan
Mission description:
A thermal neutron detector called Tinman was designed and built to meet the requirements for installation in an aircraft. TinMan has flown and acquired data on several NASA aircraft including the ER-2, Gulfstream-III and a DC-8. An important part of understanding the thermal neutron component in an aircraft environment is knowing the thermal neutron intensity without any surrounding material. This background thermal neutron flux is created by only the atmosphere and we expect it to be proportional to the high-energy neutron flux which depends on altitude, latitude and longitude. Since a balloon will have minimal material near the detector, this background thermal neutron flux can be measured in a balloon flight. As the balloon ascends, we will measure the thermal neutron intensity as a function of altitude. The results of such a measurement will be compared to MCNP models of atmospheric thermal neutron production.
Institution: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Desired Float Conditions: Conventional conditions
Desired Float Duration: 1-5 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 150,000 ft (min 100,000 ft)
30.001 Testbed for High Acuity Imaging - Stable Photometry Image-motion Compensation Experiment (THAI-SPICE)
Mission description:
A medium (~2200 lb) gondola instrumented with a network of thermal sensors and a 20-in telescope. Science objective is to test thermal models in the stratosphere and demonstrate focal plane stabilization strategies.
Institution: Southwest Research Institute; University of Virginia
Desired Float Conditions: After Twilight, 15,000 ft altitude stability
Desired Float Duration: 3-6 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 125,000 ft (min 110,000 ft)
20.006R1 All Sky Heliospheric Imager (ASHI) [PB]
Mission description:
Heliopsheric viewing; baffle and optics testing, auroral viewing. Mounted atop balloon, the camera must record the whole sky above the balloon; throughout night through sunrise ideally, moonless night through sunrise required.
Institution: Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, University of California
Desired Float Conditions: New moon, night-time launch
Desired Float Duration: 2-8 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 120,000 ft (min 80,000 ft)
20.008R1 Cubes in Space (CiS) [PB]
Mission description:
Cubes in Space provides students (ages 11-18) with an opportunity to design, build and fly experiments that are launched into space on a NASA balloon. Help children learn to problem-solve, to get them inspired about learning, to learn skills and develop interests that will prepare them to succeed in the future. All students can benefit from a STEM-based education, regardless of gender, race, religion or nationality.
Institution: Idoodlelearning.com
Desired Float Conditions: No preference
Desired Float Duration: N/A
Desired Float Altitude: N/A
20.009 Compact Multichannel Imaging Camera (CoMIC)
Mission description:
Spectral imaging camera for upper atmosphere emission.
Institution: UMass Lowell
Desired Float Conditions: Nighttime, Picture-C Piggyback
Desired Float Duration: >6 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 105,000 ft
20.022 Distributed Irradiance Monitoring System (DIMS)
Mission description:
This is primarily a technical demonstration of the COTS components under the environmental conditions of a stratospheric balloon mission. If we are able to acquire a Ca II K spectrum of sufficient S/N and resolution to derive a proxy for TSI, it will be a complete success.
Institution: High Altitude Observatory (NCAR/UCAR)
Desired Float Conditions: Stratospheric flight
Desired Float Duration: 1-3 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 30 km
20.001 Dynaminc INstrumentation for GOndolas (DINGO)
Mission description:
DINGO (Dynamics INstrumentation for GOndolas) is a custom recording device specifically designed to measure the dynamics of launch, termination, and landing of a balloon gondola, as well as image the parachute during the termination event, all while being independent of standard avionics equipment. DINGO is designed to replace the current OpenTag units (referred to as TurtleTrackers) currently being flown by WFF ETD/BPO.
Institution: WFF Balloon Program Office
Desired Float Conditions: Conventional conditions
Desired Float Duration: 1-4 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 110'000 ft (100'000 ft)
20.005R1 Experimental Module for Iterative Design of Satellite Subsystems (EMIDSS-3)
Mission description:
EMIDSS-3 is a technological platform for the demonstration and validation of various technologies in a near space environment. The payload will be contained in a CubeSat-style bus. This will be the third iteration of the EMIDSS mission.
Institution: National Polytechnic Unit
Desired Float Conditions: No preference
Desired Float Duration: 3-5 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 115,000 ft (min 100,000 ft)
20.007 Infrared Channeled Spectro-Polarimeter (IRCSP) [PB]
Mission description:
This project seeks to demonstrate the accuracy of a long wave infrared polarimeter over extended high-altitude deployment. Ultimately, this instrument is designed to produce joint radiometric and polarimetric measurement of optically thin cirrus ice clouds to retrieve effective scattering diameter and ice water content. This information is crucial to constrain weather and improve climate models.
Institution: University Of Arizona, Wyant College of Optical Science
Desired Float Conditions: No preference
Desired Float Duration: 4-8 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 35 km (min 15 km)
20.002R1 Sensor Package for Attitude, Rotation, and Relative Observable Winds - Two (SPARROW-3) [PB]
Mission description:
One or two PMC imagers flown aboard PMC Turbo and as a piggyback in 2019/20 aboard SuperTIGER. Purpose is to obtain additional high-resolution imaging of small-scale dynamics revealed in PMCs to enable further analyses and modeling of these events to advance understanding of the dynamical importance.
Institution: WFF Balloon Program Office
Desired Float Conditions: Conventional conditions
Desired Float Duration: 1-4 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 110,000 ft (min 100,000 ft)
20.021 Sandia High Altitude Aerosol Research (SHAAR) [PB]
Mission description:
Aerosol levels in the stratosphere can dramatically impact Earth's climate, but their characteristics, lifetime, and spatiotemporal variability are poorly known. In addition, the degree of tropospheric/stratospheric mixing is an important element in understanding how aerosols reach such heights, but is also relatively understudied. This mission will sample aerosols and gas composition in the middle stratosphere to determine aerosol levels and the mixing rate across the tropopause. Additionally, this project aims to develop light weight, low power, and accessible unmanned instrumentation to improve data acquisition reliance for stratospheric aerosols and gases.
Institution: Sandia National Laboratories
Desired Float Conditions: No preference
Desired Float Duration: 4-12 hours
Desired Float Altitude: 35 km (min 25 km)
NASA Code 820
Scientific Balloon Update
Report back for the latest update from NASA's Balloon Program Office.
- NASA Official: Debora Fairbrother
- Point of Contact: Valerie Brizak