Spectacular Balloon Flights From Esrange To Alaska This Spring

SPACE TRAVEL

File photo of some of NASA's ULDB Project Team with 14 meter scaled model test #1 in August 2004. Ultra long duration balloons fly where the air is thin - above 99 % of Earth's atmosphere. Credit: NASA.

Kiruna, Sweden (SPX) Feb 15, 2005
In May and June 2005 a spectacular balloon campaign will take place at Swedish Space Corporation's operational base Esrange near Kiruna in the northern part of Sweden.

One large and heavy sub-millimetre-telescope (BLAST) will be launched as well as an engineering test flight of a newly developed ultra-long duration balloon vehicle (ULDB).

The campaign is ordered by NASA and the operation will be supported by The National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF) in cooperation with the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) balloon team at Esrange.

"We are very excited about working with our Swedish colleagues on the upcoming campaign. It will demonstrate a new long duration, heavy payload balloon capability from the northern hemisphere to the international science community.

"SSC and NASA will combine resources to offer significant new opportunities for US and European scientists to fly sophisticated instruments in near space for periods of up to 10 days at very low cost", says Mr. Danny Ball, Site Manager of the NSFB facility in Palestine, Texas.

"This campaign is a milestone for SSC. Large investments have been made at Esrange, regarding increased infrastructure and facilities. We are well prepared for the mission and the plan is to carry out similar balloon campaigns together with NASA and also European scientists every summer", says Dr. Olle Norberg, Head of Esrange.

BLAST will be lifted up by a giant balloon (1.2 million m3) with the objective of carrying the payload across the Atlantic from Sweden to Alaska. The payload (2.700 kg) will reach an altitude of 40 km and the flight will take about 6-9 days.

Never before has such a flight been made, regarding payload weight in combination with altitude, duration and flight trajectory.

"BLAST will address some of the most important cosmological and galactic questions regarding the formation and evolution of stars, galaxies and clusters.

"It makes use of bolometric arrays to achieve highly sensitive images at three sub-millimetre wavelengths, while at the same time testing technology used in the future ESA sub-millimetre space telescope Herschel to be launched in 2007."

The NASA Balloon Program's capabilities are being expanded with the development of the ULDB developed by Aerostar (formerly Raven). This balloon is made of advanced materials and uses a new pumpkin-shaped balloon design to achieve flights with duration of up to 100 days.

The ULDB is completely sealed and pressurized in order to maintain constant altitude day and night. With mission duration of up to several months, this new balloon will significantly increase the amount of data that can be collected in one balloon mission.

SPACE TRAVEL

NASA Balloon Makes Record-Breaking Flight

Washington DC (SPX) Jan 31, 2005
Flying near the edge of space, a NASA scientific balloon broke the flight record for duration and distance. It soared for nearly 42 days, making three orbits around the South Pole.

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