History
Since the very beginning of the scientific research with stratospheric balloons, Italian scientists were among the pioneers in their use. As early as 1952 thanks to the balloons provided by their colleagues from Bristol University, they measured cosmic radiation coming to our earth from space. These first experiments transported emulsion stacks (some of them very big) and later more sophisticated apparatus like spark chambers and detectors. These flights were carried out from different locations in Italy like Sardinia, Milan and Padua.
By the end of the 60's as the complexity and weight of the experiments started to increase, an idea was born in the research community: Italian science needed to have a dedicated launch balloon facility.
One of the persons who helped to pave the way to materialize the idea was Prof. Livio Scarsi, a well respected astrophysicist who worked at Milan's Laboratorio di Fisica Cosmica e Tecnologie Relative headed by Giuseppe "Beppo" Occhialini. In the late 60's Prof. Scarsi moved from Milan to Palermo (Sicily) to lead a small Research Group active in high energy astrophysics with a particular interest in balloon experiments.
From a geographical point of view the Sicilian territory seemed to be perfect for this activity because it is sourrounded by sea, with open ground spaces and a low population density as well is far from important air traffic routes. Thus between late 60's and early 70's Scarsi's group started to launch balloons from the Trapani-Birgi airport located 13 kms from the city of Trapani, close to the Mediterranean shore. By that time the balloons and launch services were provided by the balloon division of the French Space Agency CNES. Once launched the balloons drifted over the sea and at the end of the flight the payloads were recovered from the water surface by a vessel of the Marina Militare Italiana (Italian Navy). At right we can see a picture of one of such launches (click to enlarge).
The airport is strategically located on the north shore of the Sicily strait, a place which concentrates all the maritime traffic between east and west Mediterranean Sea. By this reason in the early 70's the Aeronautica Militare Italiana (Italian Air Force) built an important Military base in an adjacent terrain. Soon was clear that the only way to avoid to interfere with the already established civilian air traffic and the additional military flights would be to move the balloon launch operations to another place. Thus, in summer 1971 the last balloon was launched at Birgi, closing that part of the Italian scientific research with balloons. Nevertheless, a new chapter was ready to be opened.
From the world war to the edge of the space
The attention of those willing to establish a full time facility was soon captured by an abandoned military airport located not so far from Trapani-Birgi, which served during the second world war mainly for support movements of Italian troops to Africa and as home base for fighting squadrons protecting transport convoys. As the site suffered several times during wartime the allied bombing it was not in the best conditions but still had remarkable peculiarities.
The airport occupied a vast area on the south side of Monte San Giuliano. Being sheltered on the north by the steep rock of Mount Erice, it has excellent wind conditions in low altitude to allow a safe launch as well with the high altitude winds allowing to develope flights trajectories over the sea. It had an area very well suited to be used as launch pad, as well several war time barracks and other buildings which could be adapted for future use.
In 1972, the Servizio Attivitá Spaziali (Space Activity Service or SAS) following directives of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Research Council or CNR) agreed to proceed with the reconvertion of the old airport. Those were years of great expansion for Italy's research in space matters. Aside the fact that official funding was absorbed mainly by "real-space" efforts like the SIRIO satellite project, small amounts of money were also available for other initiatives, like the balloon program. Thus in 1975 was received a initial injection of state founds nearing 90 millions of lires to materialize the project of the launch station.
The Trapani-Milo base -as will be know to differenciate it from the former launch site- was formally inaugurated on 24 July 1975. His first director was Mr. Marco Malavasi.
A transatlantic launch station
Since the dawn of the scientific ballooning, several missions instead of ending as planned, managed to stay aloft for longer times and crossed the Atlantic to Europe and viceversa. There are testimonies of rogue american balloons that traveled as far as Norway, England or Africa, as well balloons launched from Europe -mainly France- found in far places as Puerto Rico or Montana. However these happenings were merely accidental. Nevertheless, in 1974 a exploratory project was started between Italy, the United States and United Kingdom to study the possibility to perform a transatlantic crossing using balloons. As those were times when astrophysicist were eager to obtain longer exposure periods for their instruments at near space altitudes to try to detect very rare phenomena in the high energy spectrum domain, the idea soon obtained support from the scientific community. The plan was to launch the balloons from the Trapani-Milo base in summer to allow them to be carried westward by the moonsonal winds. After crossing the Mediterranean basin and then passing over Spain and Portugal, they would cross the entire Atlantic Ocean to finish his flight on the United States, where they would be terminated and recovered if possible in a low populated area.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed among the states that participated of the endeveaour, drawing clear responsabilities. The United States, through the National Science Foundation, funded the NSBF (National Scientific Balloon Facility) to furnish the balloon, helium needed, launch hardware and crew and took care of the entire American segment of the mission. Great Britain, through the British Science Research Council, was in charge of the payload, which was an experiment from the University of Bristol on cosmic X-rays. Finally on the Italian part, aside the use of the base's facilities and the availability of a full supporting ground operation crew, an important collaboration was received from the Aeronautica Militare which offered radar coverage over the initial portion of the mission.
The tracking of the flight was done using the worldwide OMEGA navigation system while for telemetry and scientific data transmission was used a low bit-rate HF system that except for some gaps in mid-ocean, worked acceptably well. One of the HF receiving stations was located at Trapani, while in the other side of the Atlantic the NSBF was allowed to use the United States Navy Facilities of the Naval Research Laboratory in the Chesapeake Bay Annex. At left can be seen a picture of the antenna array at Trapani when being mounted (click to enlarge).
The first balloon was launched on 5 August 1975 and after traveling near 8.500 kms the payload landed safelly 81 hours later in Lexington, Kentucky. With this historical mission, a double landmark was set. First was demonstrated the feasibility of performing such a mission with a heavy balloon and second, as a result of the succesful flight the budget assigned for the Trapani facility was increased by 300 millions of lires. The activity of the base became progressively more extensive since several scientific groups at the time expressed great interest to use the "long duration balloon facility" -as often was denominated in the specialized literature- to expose their instruments.
A second campaign the next year, performed two more flights which lasted 75 and 104 hours aloft. One of them -launched on 16 August- was carrying a multi-instrumented gondola with several experiments from Italian Universities. That mission made history because by chance during the flight was detected for the first time a radio frequency gamma-ray burst of non-solar origin. Above at right can be seen the pre-launch operations of the flight while the beautiful image bellow shows the balloon at dawn while being inflated (both images click to enlarge).
Beside the success, the intrinsec limitations of the low bit-rate data transmission system and the poor capability to send commands to the balloons, casted a shadow of doubt over the future of these kind of missions. The last attempt to perform a transatlantic flight took place in the summer of 1980. The payload was a large area Hard X-Ray detector known as HXR-80 developed at IAS-Frascati and was launched on July 19th. Nevertheless, a failure in the on-board navigation and telemetry system forced to bring it down over Spain before starting the Ocean crossing.
Exists a never confirmed history which points that at some time during those years one of the transatlantic balloons launched from Sicily, "slipped" unnoticed by air traffic controllers into the United States east coast air space. According to the history, this provoked the Air Authorities (FAA) to forbid the transit of any other balloon coming from the other side of the Ocean. Besides the lack of hard evidence on the matter, the tale is not totally incoherent with the policy of that times: in the early 80's NASA often reviewed their own domestic flights rules, and established very strong restrictions in regard of heavy payloads being flown over populated areas. True or not, after 1980 these flights were never intended again.
Transmediterranean flights: the ODISSEA agreement.
Let's return back in time a couple of years. While the transatlantic balloon missions were the "stars" of those days another flight scheme was implemented to offer to the scientific community long duration flights. Although shorter -if compared with the 3-4 days of the flight to United States- the launches performed from Sicily to Spain crossing the mediterranean sea in 24 hours, proved to be not only more reliable and easy to implement but had, in perspective, a better science return and a much longer existence. This is what was widely known as the "ODISSEA" effort which involved a three part agreement between Italy, France and Spain. By the Italian side -as ocurred with the former transatlantic missions- the collaboration consisted in the use of the Trapani-Milo launch base, all the necessary hardware, a ground crew and initial tracking after launching. 
The French were in charge of the launch operation itself, providing the operational staff, the balloons and helium used. Finally the Spanish side offered trought the INTA (Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial) tracking/telemetry coverage over the Mediterranean sea using two stations, one located in Palma de Mallorca (39º 36'N 2º 41'W) and the other in El Arenosillo (37º 6'N 6º 44'W) near Huelva. INTA also was in charge of the recovery operations once the payloads touched Spanish soil.
The initiative's name is -according to some sources- due to Mr. Armand Soubrier chief of the balloon sector of CNES at the time and was inspired in the infamous epic poem which Homer wrote in the eight century BC probably as a metaphore of the exploratory spirit fueling the balloon effort. But the relationship not ends there. If we see the launch record in the bottom of this page, we will find that some of the missions names are -as usual- acronyms derivated from the description of the scientific instruments itself (i.e: FIGARO which stands for French-Italian GAmma Ray Observatory) but others were named after characters found in Homer's masterpiece: ULYSSES, NAUSICAA, POLIFEMO, CIRCE or TELEMAQUE to name a few. Even the launch vehicle used in Trapani-Milo base to transport and hold the payloads during launches was baptized as "PENELOPE".
Like occured with the oceanic crossings, the flights were carried out in summer when the winds blow from east over a more or less straight line following the 38º parallel. The major part of the flight was over open sea overflying land just at the end of each mission.
The first of such flights was launched from Trapani-Milo in August 6, 1977 traveling in 20 hours to Spain. That maiden flight marked the start for a succesfull cooperative effort between the 3 countries which allowed the realization of more than 40 balloon-borne missions for several laboratories and Universities from Europe and the rest of the world, in a program that spanned through the entire decade of 80's and the first years of the following. The Odissea agreement suffered in 1992 the retirement of the French, but far from ending, the transmediterranean balloon flights started a new phase. A phase which would be marked by an operative independence.
The modern era
In 1988 was created the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (Italian Space Agency or ASI) which englobed all the space related national tasks. Among the responsabilities of the new organism was the operation of the well established stratospheric balloon launch base of Trapani-Milo.
As already mentioned, the base has been established primarily to perform the transatlantic flights in collaboration with NASA and later consolidated his activities under the Odissea agreement. During both cooperative efforts Italian teams developed the necessary "know-how" in all phases of the launch, flight, tracking and recovery process, so when France retired from Odissea, Italy decided to take over the entire management of the balloon operations to allow the continuation of the transmediterranean flights.
The first flight carried out under full italian control was the ARGO mission, developed by Rome University (La Sapienza), ENEA Frascati, and IROE-CNR. It consisted in a telescope specially created to detect anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background at different angular scales. At left can be seen a picture of it in Trapani prior to the flight (click to enlarge). The telescope was launched on August 4, 1993 under a one million cubic meter balloon being succesfully recovered 20 hours later in Spain by a local team. As a direct scientific result of the flight high quality data was obtained while in the technical side was clear the fact that the Italian balloon program had matured enough to walk on his own.
Two years later a new kind of mission would be intended. As balloons launched from Trapani in most cases were flown over open sea spaces, at some point was studied the posibility to carry out balloon flights transporting instruments and payloads to be droped from high altitudes. During those years the French firm Aérospatiale was working on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA) in a capsule (which resembled the Apollo capsule) known as the Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator (ARD) designed to test and qualify new technologies and flight control capabilities for atmospheric reentry and landing. Although the full scale mission was projected to be tested in a real reentry from Earth's orbit after being launched by an Ariane rocket, a first drop test from a balloon was planned to be performed at sea.
The mission was comissioned to ASI by Alenia Spazio, an italian firm participating of the project which was in charge of the subsystem of Descent and Recovery. The balloon was meant to be launched from the Trapani-Milo base whith the release projected to be done over the sea near Marettimo island close to the Sicilian west coast. The mission's profile and the heavy nature of the payload forced to make several changes to the existent hardware and the incorporation of additional security measures to avoid any incident during the flight.
Also a close forecast of meteorological conditions was fundamental to rule out the risk of a sudden trajectory change from the projected landing zone at sea. The capsule was integrated to a gondola specially built for ARD to allow the addition of telemetry hardware and ballast without affecting the craft's attitude. Additionally the flight train was carefully balanced to counteract any instability and the launch procedures were reviewed in order to guarantee security and reliability. At right we can see a picture of the ARD capsule prior to the 1996 flight (click to enlarge).
The first test was carried out in 1995 but a failure in the balloon prevented it to achieve the desire altitude/trajectory. Nevertheless the next year the mission was performed succesfully, marking a new milestone in base's history, which incorporated these drop tests to the base's portfolio of services in a regular basis.
The confidence and experience gained during the ARD launch campaign also redunded in the addition of other two launch schemes to the bases's flight services. The first called "local flights" are short duration missions carried out in "turnaround" periods when the stratospheric winds change their course and stall for a week or two, allowing minimal displacement from the launch point. The second launch scheme was established after years of studying the atmospheric conditions. It was found that during some months at a height of 20 kms the winds blown in one direction while at 40 km they blow in the inverse direction. This discovery led to the creation of the concept of "Boomerang Flights" which is a very common mission profile performed in several other balloon programs worldwide. After launched the balloon is allowed to ascent only up to 20 kms, once leveled at that height (by valving some gas) it drifts with the prevailing winds traveling away from the launch site. After some time of flight -just before lossing the line of sight contact with the ground station- ballast is dropped by command to let the balloon reach a new ceiling at 40 km where it is caught by winds running in the opposite direction, making the balloon to return near the launch site for a less complicated recovery task. The first test flight of the boomerang technique took place in 1998.
In July, 2001 the bases name changed to "Base de Lancio di Palloni Stratosferici Luigi Broglio" (Luigi Broglio Stratospheric Balloon Launch Base) honoring the father of Italy's Astronautics who died that same year.
Current capabilities
We will summarize now the balloon operations infrastructure currently available in Trapani-Milo.
Bellow, can be seen a satellite image of the Base's layout. The long inclined portion of clear terrain is the former strip of the military airport. Remarkably, still are clearly visible the marks of explosions left by allied bombing raids during Second World War.
The total surface of the terrain occupied by the airport is of 95 Hectares. It is split near the middle by the "Autostrada A29", a highway running in East-West direction which connects the cities of Trapani and Alcamo.
The "southern" part of the complex comprises the launch area while the "northern" one is where are located all the operative buildings. Both sides are connected each other by a bridge passing over the highway which allow to transport the payloads and balloons to the launch area as can be seen at left (click to enlarge).
The launch area have a diameter of 600 meters, and is entirely enlightened for nocturnal flights, with direct visibility from the control center. The launch vehicle was built using a heavy duty motorized crane and is used to transport and hang the payloads at launch since the early 80's, with several additions and improvements made over the years. It can manage weights of up to 2500 Kg, while the launch spool mounted in the rear end of a truck is able to hold balloons ranging between 100.000 and 1.100.000 cubic meters of volume.
Four hangars are available with a total work space of 900 square meters. They were adapted from the original War times barracks to be used for payload integration and tests.
Each one is equipped with direct network access, air conditioning, electric and mechanical equipment as well as overhead travelling cranes. One of the hangars also hosts a thermal chamber as well a vacuum chamber, allowing to test in near-space conditions the behaviour of the payloads and instruments to be flown. Also is available a fully equipped workshop, an electronic laboratory, and outside the hangar zone is located an amagnetic suspending system which can be used for gondola pointing tests during integration time. A general view of these buildings can be seen at right (click to enlarge).
At his full capacity the integration area can host up to 5 scientific payloads at the same time with their respective working teams. In the same sector of the base is located the biggest building of the entire facility which can be seen at left (click to enlarge). It serve as Helium recovery installation and stock building for the different vehicles which take part of the operations.
In regard the communication hardware, for telemetry and telecommand (TM/TC) the base actually uses the UHF band. The onboard system is composed by two modulation phase transmitters (400,17 & 401,16 Mhz) and a PCM encoder, and two receptors & antennas. For localization a GPS system is included onboard each gondola along with an ARGOS transmitter beacon. At the end of the decade of 1990 was started a project to switch from the UHF system to a 'S' band system. Two flights for the qualification phase in 1998 and 1999, were followed by a Transmediterranean flight in the summer of 2002 on which was used for the first time the 'S' band system with the UHF telemetry acting as a backup. During the flight only the Trapani ground station was employed to track it to Spain. To the aforementioned capabilities must be added two vans configured to serve as mobile stations to link the balloons in flight with the ground control center.
Finally, the last building in the northern area of the base comprises the Control Center and offices which are the headquarters of the entire facility. There, is located a full operative meteorological center including a Vaisala sounding station and the Telemetry room and Control center that we can see in the image at right (click to enlarge). There lies the high bit rate real time data acquisition system, real time flight data Digital/Analogical recording, flight control and balloon tracking systems, the whole equipment of TM/TC, and in another room is located a very complete data elaboration center as well telex, telefax and radio facilities. Outside the building lies a three story tall tower where is mounted the 'S' band system antenna (picture bellow).
Thinking the future
One of the ASI institutional objectives for the Trapani Base is to transform it in a centre of excellence dedicated to primary activities related to stratospheric balloons, under European standards. Thanks to the new technologies in the field of telecommunications and information technology, the agency is targeting support activities of small space missions, the supporting of developing countries to allow access to space, improving technological transfer and processes, and supporting national programs where the know-how developed during decades at the Trapani Base can be put into use.
In the framework of the roadmap drawn for the upcoming years, several projects are being carried out by the base administration. Some of them are focused in technical issues and others in more operative and strategic matters. In regard the first kind, three telemetry systems were already tested and are in process of qualification to be fully operative in future missions:
IRIASI supplied by the French firm ELTA, which offers science and housekeeping TM/TC capability using IRIDIUM communication system and was used for the first time during DUSTER experiment launched in June 2008 from Svalbard Islands; IRILASI also from ELTA which offers the same that IRIASI plus a line of sight 'L' band link to obtain high rate of data download, and finally STRADIUM developed through a joint venture among Italian firms and universities, which is a domestic effort to obtain a similar IRIDIUM based high performance TM/TC system. In regard the rest of the systems, the most important project is called HIPEG and consists in the development of an advanced gondola azimuth pointing system (pivot), being built by Italian partners (IASF/INAF - Bologna). Other ongoing projects include new onboard power systems based on fuel cells for longer duration power, implementation of non dynamic balloon launch systems, the use of unconventional parachutes and the upgrading of computational tools for flight dynamics analysis and flight trajectories forecasting.
As contempled in the expansive developmental scheme of the future ASI stratospheric activities all tasks will be managed there. From the integration phase to the test in flight or in laboratory, from the storage of equipments and machines need for operations to the preparation and shipment of all kind of equipment needed in worldwide balloon launch campaigns, these activities will be focused in Trapani.
In regard operations, there are three major areas of competence as follows:
- Conventional balloon launches: performing Transmediterranean as well local flights from Trapani.
- Drop test of heavy payloads over the sea: performing such missions from restricted air/sea space managed by Salto de Quirra military facility in Sardignia or in the vecinity of Malindi Station in Kenya (Africa)
- Long duration balloon flights: under agreement between ASI and ARR (Andoya Rocket Range, Norway) to use Longyearbean airport in Svalbard to make summer and winter balloon launches and to realize the new Italian / Norwegian Nobile/Amundsen Stratospheric balloon Center in Longyearbean.
Resuming, we must point out that clearly, Trapani-Milo base had demonstrated through the years the ability to change his role and function to adapt it to the scientific ballooning trend of the times: a vital fact to keep in the business.
Web site: Agenzia Spaziale Italiana - A.S.I. - http://www.asi.it/en/agency/bases/balloons
Balloons launched from Trapani-Birgi
| Date | Hour | Flight Duration | Experiment | Payload landing place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7/??/1967 | --- | MULTIPLATE SPARK CHAMBER | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/??/1967 | --- | MULTIPLATE SPARK CHAMBER | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/??/1967 | --- | MULTIPLATE SPARK CHAMBER | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/??/1967 | --- | MULTIPLATE SPARK CHAMBER | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/23/1971 | 23:00 utc | --- | GAMMA RAY TELESCOPE | --- No Data --- |
Balloons launched from Trapani-Milo
| Date | Hour | Flight Duration | Experiment | Payload landing place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8/5/1975 | 7:03 local | F 84 h 10 m | GAMMA RAY MEASUREMENTS | In Lexington, Kentucky, US |
| 7/29/1976 | 19:30 | 3 d 3 h | HARD X-RAY DETECTOR | --- No Data --- |
| 8/13/1976 | 4 d 11 h | GAMMA RAY DETECTOR | Near Gardner, Massachusetts, USA | |
| 8/6/1977 | 22 h | First transmediterranean flight from Sicily to Spain | Balloon terminated flight over Spain. | |
| 7/20/1978 | ~ 20 h | -- No data -- | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/28/1978 | 19:33 | 19 h | An instrument composed by two Cassegrian telescopes and photometers designed to detect sources in the infrared spectrum. | In Andalucía, Spain |
| ??/??/1979 | --- | -- No Data -- | In Sicily, Italy | |
| 8/??/1979 | --- | -- No data -- | near the city of Granada in Spain. | |
| 8/26/1979 | 27 h | HXR79 | near the city of Cordoba in Spain. | |
| 7/19/1980 | ~ 18 h | -- No Data -- | In Spain | |
| 8/10/1980 | F 19 h | HXM-80M | In Spain | |
| 6/29/1981 | ~ 18 h | CLYTONEE | 100 km N of Sevilla, Spain | |
| 7/6/1981 | --- | POLIFEMO | near Sciacca, Sicily, Italy | |
| 7/14/1981 | 16 h 30 m | MINIZEBRA | 50 km N of Huelva, Spain | |
| 7/21/1981 | ~ 16 h | POKER-HXR81M | near Llerena, 100 km N of Sevilla, Spain | |
| 8/3/1981 | ~ 15 h | ULYSEE | 60 km N of Sevilla, Spain | |
| 8/6/1981 | ~ 23 h 30 m | ENEA | 60 km N of Sevilla, Spain | |
| 7/1/1983 | ~ 20 h | ALIOS | Near Sevilla, Spain | |
| 7/11/1983 | ~ 20 h | TELEMAQUE | Near Sevilla, Spain | |
| 7/26/1983 | ~ 20 h | ELENA | Near Sevilla, Spain | |
| 6/26/1984 | 6:46 local | 19 h 20 m | ALIOS | 60 km NE of Huelva, Spain |
| 7/10/1984 | --- | TIFANI | Payload lost in the sea 250 kms from the spanish coast | |
| 7/22/1984 | 7:13 local | 20 h 20 m | POKER | 60 kms south of Salamanca, Spain |
| 7/30/1984 | 7:11 local | 18 h 20 m | ARGO | 50 km E of Jerez, Spain |
| 8/??/1984 | --- | HERCULE | --- No Data --- | |
| 8/6/1984 | 7:42 local | ~ 20 h | TELEMAQUE | north of Villar del Rey, Spain |
| ??/??/1985 | --- | ALIOS | 30 km from the launch site | |
| ??/??/1985 | --- | MIFRASO - PALLAS | Near the launch site, Sicily, Italy | |
| ??/??/1985 | 21 h | NAUSICAA | In the Cordoba zone in Spain | |
| 8/5/1985 | 23 h | POKER | In the Granada zone in Spain | |
| ??/??/1986 | --- | ALIOS | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/11/1986 | 7:45 local | 20 h 10 m | FIGARO II (French Italian Gamma Ray Observatory) | In Sevilla region, Spain. |
| 7/29/1986 | 8:30 local | 20 h | MIFRASO - PALLAS | Near Sevilla, Spain |
| 7/7/1987 | ~ 20 h | THEMIS | Near Sevilla, Spain | |
| 7/15/1987 | 7:45 | ~ 21 h | MIFRASO - PALLAS | Near Sevilla, Spain |
| 7/29/1987 | ~ 22 h | ARGO | Near Sevilla, Spain | |
| 8/4/1987 | ~ 19 h | AROME | Near Sevilla, Spain | |
| 12/7/1987 | --- | TECHNOLOGICAL FLIGHT | --- No Data --- | |
| 8/1/1988 | ~ 2 h | ---No Data--- | In the sea, near Sicily, Italy | |
| 8/9/1989 | 22:45 local | ~23 h | ARGO - MINI-TIR | In El Bosque, near Jerez de la Frontera, Spain |
| 7/9/1990 | 4:33 | ~ 9 h | FIGARO II (French Italian Gamma Ray Observatory) | --- No Data --- |
| 7/22/1990 | --- | THEMIS | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/30/1992 | --- | AROME | In Spain | |
| 8/4/1993 | 18:10 | 20 h 15 m | ARGO | Near Avila, Spain. |
| 6/??/1995 | --- | -- No Data -- | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/29/1995 | 26 h 7 m | HEAT (High Energy Astronomical Telescope) - PALLAS | Payload landed in the Atlantic Ocean. Never recovered | |
| 8/10/1995 | 21 h 7 m | CRASH (Cosmic Rays And Strange Hadronic matter) | In Munera, Albacete, Spain | |
| 8/20/1995 | 08:00 local | --- | ARD (Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator) | On the Jonic Sea between the citys of Catania and Syracuse, Sicily |
| 7/14/1996 | 08:00 local | --- | ARD (Atmospheric Reentry Demonstrator) | On the sea near Marettimo island 80 km from Sicily's coast |
| 7/23/1997 | 20 h 27 m | CRASH (Cosmic Rays And Strange Hadronic matter) | In Los Barrios, Cadiz, Spain | |
| 8/6/1997 | 1:28 | 3 h 53 m | HASI - PWA | On the Mediterranean Sea |
| 8/10/1997 | 3 h 45 m | TRANSMED | In Marettimo, Sicily, Italy | |
| 7/30/1998 | 5 h | BABY (BAckground BYpass) | --- No Data --- | |
| ??/??/1999 | --- | -- No Data -- | --- No Data --- | |
| 7/5/1999 | 6:00 | 17 hs | COBY II | In Spain |
| 7/17/1999 | 21:22 local | ~ 24 hs | ARCHEOPS | Near Granja de Torre Hermosa, Badajoz, Spain |
| 8/2/1999 | 20:22 | ~ 14 h | SAFIRE-B (Spectroscopy of the Atmosphere using Far InfraRed Emission - Balloon) + GPSR-MEBEX (GPS Reflections - Mediterranean Balloon Experiment) | Near Nerpio, a town in the Sierra de Segura, Albacete province of Huelva, Spain. |
| 6/19/2000 | 06:00 | 05 h 25 m | -- No Data -- | On the Mediterranean sea. |
| 7/10/2000 | 06:16 | ~23 h | BIRBA (Biological Radiation on Balloon) | In Spain |
| 12/14/2000 | 06:00 | --- | SINTESYS | --- No Data --- |
| 6/15/2001 | 06:19 | ~ 3 h | HASI (Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument) | En Sicilia, Italia |
| 7/2/2001 | 05:47 | ~21 h | BIRBA (Biological Radiation on Balloon) | On the Atlantic Ocean W of Gibraltar strait |
| 7/14/2001 | 05:54 | ~ 4 h | BIRBA (Biological Radiation on Balloon) | En Sicilia, Italia |
| 7/23/2001 | 20:00 | 5 h | BABY (BAckground BYpass) | En Sicilia, Italia |
| 5/30/2002 | 06:56 local | ~ 4 h | HASI (Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument) | En Sicilia, Italia |
| 6/23/2002 | 09:20 local | 24 h | BIRBA (Biological Radiation on Balloon) | In Spain |
| 7/10/2002 | 23:09 local | ~ 12 h | BABY (BAckground BYpass) | In Spain |
| 7/29/2002 | 21:00 | 20 h | SAFIRE / IBEX (Infrared Balloon-borne EXperiment) | In Sierra Nevada, Spain |
| 6/7/2003 | 06:54 local | ~ 4 h | HASI (Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument) | In Sicily |