For ARCADE (Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission)

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Launch site:Fort Sumner Municipal Airport, New Mexico, US  
Launch team: National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF)
Balloon: Open balloon (zero pressure)
Volume: 300.000 m3
Serial number: -
Flight identification number: -
Campaign: - 
Payload weight: -
Gondola weight: -
Overall weight: -

The balloon was launched by dynamic method with assistance of launch vehicle on 2001 November 2.

After a nominal ascent phase, the balloon reached float altitude.

After a flight of near 13 hours, the separation command was transmited and the payload came down in a ravine near Roswell, New Mexico, and had to be disassembled and flown out in pieces on a helicopter.  

ARCADE (Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission)

Responsable institution:  NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center
Principal Investigator:  Dr. Alan Kogut

A high altitude balloon payload designed to study the early universe and composed by two radiometers at 10 and 30 ghz mounted in a liquid helium dewar.

It measures the frequency spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), to search for signals from the first stars to form after the Big Bang. The instrument compares the measured CMB frequency spectrum of CMB radiation at centimeter wavelengths by comparing the heat from deep space to an on-board blackbody calibrator.

To reduce the signal from the instrument itself, the entire instrument is maintained near absolute zero in an open bucket dewar, which is the largest open-aperture cryogenic payload ever to fly on a balloon.

At left can be seen a scheme of the gondola in the 2001 flight version (click to enlarge).