Three Balloon Missions Simultaneously Afloat Above Two Continents

There are currently three scientific balloons aloft aroudn the world – AESOP, Sunrise, and 597N FIREBall. Below is a short summary (courtesy of NASA GSFC) of each mission.

There are currently three scientific balloons aloft aroudn the world – AESOP, Sunrise, and 597N FIREBall. Below is a short summary (courtesy of NASA GSFC) of each mission.

— AESOP – Dr. John Clem – University of Delaware. AESOP Payload was launched from Esrange/Sweden on June 7, 2009.

The AntiElectron SubOrbitial Payload (AESOP) mission will determine the extent to which the large-scale structure of the heliospheric magnetic field is important in the transmission of galactic cosmic rays through the heliosphere.

— Sunrise – Dr. Sami Solanki – Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. Sunrise was launched from Esrange/Sweden on June 7, 2009.

A balloon-borne 1m solar telescope to provide near diffraction-limited images of the photosphere and chromosphere with an unprecedented resolution down to 35 km on the solar surface. The SUNRISE science requirements demand precision fine pointing and has a sensitivity of better than 0.003 arcsec and allows improving the fine pointing from 7.5 arc –seconds provided by the gondola to about 0.05 arc-seconds at the science instruments.

— 597N FIREBall – Dr. Chris Martin, California Tech. FIREBall Payload was launched from New Mexico on June 8, 2009.

Faint Intergalactic medium Red-shifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall) is a cooperative effort between Columbia University, California Institute of Technology, France’s Laboratorie Astronomie Marseille (LAM) and CNES. FIREBall seeks to discover and map faint emission from the Inter Galactic Medium (IGM). The FIREBall gondola is able to point the instrument anywhere on the sky between 20 degrees elevation and 80 degrees elevation. The field of view is 2 arc minutes and the pointing is better than 10 arc seconds.

Keep current at CSBF Operations Website at http://www.csbf.nasa.gov/