Data of the stratospheric balloon launched on 12/28/2000
For ATIC (Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter)

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Details of the balloon and launch operations


 
Launch site:Williams Field, McMurdo Base, Antarctica  
Launch team: National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF)
Balloon: Open balloon (zero pressure)
Volume: 800.000 m3
Serial number: -
Flight identification number: 493N
Campaign: - 
Payload weight: 3470 lbs
Gondola weight: -
Overall weight: 4935 lbs

The balloon was launched by dynamic method assisted by launch vehicle on December 28th, 2000, at 4:25 utc, and after reach float altitude, started an anti-clockwise path above the Antarctic Plateau.

For January 6th, 2001 the ATIC balloon had traveled half way around the continent with all their systems are performing well.

Finally, after an almost 17 day flight the ATIC balloon flight was terminated from the chase LC-130 plane on January 13th, 2001 at 16:56 local time. The instrument took about 40 minutes to parachute down to the Antarctic continent surface and landed upright and in good condition at 75º 30.13' S, 154º 5.23' E.

The recovery crew aboard a Twin Otter reached the landing site on January 23th finding that apparently the payload suffered only minimal damage in the solar arrays and the external frame. However, after removing the bottom hemisphere of the pressure vessel the recovery crew found that 3 out of 4 electronics bay had broken support structures. Presumably this damage occurred during parachute deployment when the experiment is subject to the largest stress (10 g's) of the flight.  

Images


Click to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

 

© ATIC web site

Description of the payload or experiment


ATIC (Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter)
Responsable institution:  Louisiana State University
Principal Investigator:  Dr. John P. Wefel

An instrument composed mainly by a ionization calorimeter with the objective of to measure the cosmic ray proton and helium spectra from below 5 x 1010 eV to more than 1014 eV, with statistical accuracy better than 30% at the highest energy.

This unique coverage with a single instrument, will enable the scientists to investigate the spectral difference between hydrogen and helium, and identify any spectral breaks over a broad energy range.

In addition, ATIC filled an existing gap in measurements of the proton/alpha ratio between observations below 100 GeV and the highest emulsion chamber energies.

Concurrently, ATIC will measure the spectra of nuclei up to iron, with individual element resolution and superior energy resolution.  

Performance in flight and data obtained


During this first flight all systems performed very well and were recorded more than 45 Gbytes of high energy cosmic ray measurements.

External references and bibliographical sources


  ATIC web site Louisiana State University
 Atic Experiment: Elemental Spectra from the Flight in 2000 Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference. July 31-August 7, 2003. Trukuba, Japan
 Atic Experiment: Flight Data Processing Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference. July 31-August 7, 2003. Trukuba, Japan
 ATIC Flight Data Processing Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany.
 Comparison of Measured and Simulated Albedo Signals in the ATIC Experiment Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference. July 31-August 7, 2003. Trukuba, Japan
 Data Processing and Event Reconstruction for the ATIC Balloon Payload Proceedings of the 26th International Cosmic Ray Conference. August 17-25, 1999. Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
 Experience of Application of Silicon Matrix as a Charge Detector in the ATIC Experiment Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference. July 31-August 7, 2003. Trukuba, Japan
 High Energy Cosmic Ray Electron Spectra Measured from the ATIC Balloon Experiment Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference. July 31-August 7, 2003. Trukuba, Japan
 High energy electron and gamma-ray detection with ATIC Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany
 Lighter than air, heavy on science Article on ATIC from the Antarctic Sun magazine
 Preliminary results from the first flight of ATIC Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany
 Relative Abundances and Energy Spectra of C, N, and O as Measured by the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter Balloon Experiment Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference. July 31-August 7, 2003. Trukuba, Japan
 Rigidity Spectra of Protons and Helium as Measured in the First Flight of the ATIC Experiment Proceedings of the 28th International Cosmic Ray Conference. July 31-August 7, 2003. Trukuba, Japan
 The Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC) for Studies of High Energy Cosmic Rays Proceedings of the 26th International Cosmic Ray Conference. August 17-25, 1999. Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
 The ATIC experiment: first balloon flight Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany
 The ATIC experiment: performance of the scintillator hodoscope and the BGO calorimeter Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany
 The CNO concentration in cosmic ray spectrum as measured from the ATIC experiment Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany
 The first flight of ATIC: preliminary results on Li, Be, B nuclei Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany

If you detected mistakes in the information presented here, please tell me     (Updated on 17-Aug-2007 - 03:27:11pm)

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