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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Goddard Space Flight Center

Scientific Ballooning

Balloon Program Office

Operations

Balloon Launch Locations

There are a number of factors that determine the selection of balloon launch locations. Among those are mission duration, need for flights over low-population areas for safety reasons, the science to be collected during the mission, cost, wind speed and direction, and many more.

Launch locations include:

The balloon flights from launch locations in the U.S. are usually short, hours to a day. These are called conventional balloon flights. The duration from other locations are longer, days to weeks. These are called long-duration balloon flights.


NASA Code 820

Scientific Balloon Update

Report back for the latest update from NASA's Balloon Program Office.