Balloon launch activity continues in Sweden - 3/31/2011
Kiruna, Sweden.- After a break of two weeks, yesterday a new balloon was launched from the Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, marking the start of the second part of the ENRICHED scientific campaign.
The balloon -manufactured by the French firm Zodiac which has a volume of 400.000 cubic meters- was launched at 22:45 utc on March 30. Onboard was MIPAS (Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding) an advanced Fourier transform infrared spectrometer which performs precise limb emission soundings of chemical constituents related to the stratospheric ozone problem and to the greenhouse effect. Also was present on the same gondola a submilimeter wave limb sounder called TELIS (TeraHertz Limb Sounder). The first was developed by KIT-IMK Karlsruhe and the second by DLR, both from Germany. After crossing sweden and Finland during the overnight flight at 5:30 utc of March 31, the payload was separated from the balloon and landed in Russian territory, near the Finish border.
Thus, the campaign -being carried by the balloon division of the French space agency CNES- resumed after a forced break due to the exceptional conditions in the Artic atmosphere this year.
Stay tuned, for more information on the upcoming flights.
Stratospheric mice. New article in Stratocat - 3/21/2011
Technology and technical advances increased exponentially the standards of security and predictability of today's scientific ballooning, transforming what was once a traditional development activity in a techno-scientific discipline permitting the production of more and better science. Much has been gained from that changes but in the process some has been lost too.
For many people who lived firsthand the strange passion for ballooning and for those whom loved this activity as an important part of their professional careers or lives, one of the things that most will miss is some sort of romanticism and adventure that were the trademark of those pioneering years.
To recover some of the spirit of that era for nowadays readers, StratoCat will begin to publish a series of articles meant to bring back to the scene those forgotten years and specially the unique and individual character of the people involved in the field in an era that would lay the foundations of the stratospheric balloon as a scientific tool.
As a first step to this goal, we present a lenghtly article entitled "Operation Stratomouse" that appeared in a medical scientific journal (Military Medicine) in September 1956. What you are about to read, is one of the most accurate and finest chronicles of the day-to-day life during a balloon launch campaign, ever written. A true tale from the old days when GPS or real time tracking from a desktop computer connected to internet were only part of the wildest dreams of science fiction. Those glorious days on which every balloon launched was an adventure itself which hardly could finish as expected.
Enjoy it. You will not be dissapointed.
End for the first part of CNES campaign at ESRANGE - 3/18/2011
Kiruna, Sweden.- According to a brief statement published today by the Swedish Space Agency in their website, the first part of the balloon launch effort initiated a month go at the Esrange Space Center has been completed and "...there will be a break until 2 April, when the second part will start...". Of the originally planned flights only four balloons were launched.
As we mentioned in previous entries aside several technical problems, the main reason that kept the balloons and their payloads on the ground were the strong winds in the stratosphere, that would force to make shorter flights than expected, and in several cases would not allow to obtain enough time at float altitude to record useful data.
Since our last update near a month ago, only three more balloons were launched. The first one involved a small balloon and was launched on March 11, at 14:02 utc it carried as main instrument an spectrometer called SAOZ. The second mission involved a bigger balloon (100.000 m3) and was devoted to transport a frost-point hygrometer called ELHYSA which provides vertical water vapour profiles and was developed by the Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (LMD) from France. The balloon started its journey on March 12 at 19:47 utc, and after a flight of near 3 hours landed near the small town of Ivalo, in northern Finland.
Finally the most recent flight took place on March 15 and involved the launch of a 5.000 m3 balloon that transported a new frost-point hygrometer in phase of qualification called SAWfPHY and also developed by LMD. It uses a surface acoustic wave sensor and was designed to be used onboard long duration super-pressure balloon missions.
Although in part dissapointed by the atmospheric conditions that forced to delay the start of the ENRICHED campaign to next April, the scientific teams taking part of that effort are facing exceptional conditions in the Artic this year. "...The geophysical conditions in the Arctic this year are exceptional and very similar to what is normally found in the Antarctic. Fact is that the vortex has been always centred over the North Pole, highly isolated from mid latitudes and very cold. Within the past 20 years it has never occured that the cold areas have persisted that long..." published today in a brief newsitem at the campaign's website adding that "...from that we can conclude that due to these exceptional and new dynamical vortex conditions this spring we will get probably the highest ozone loss in the Arctic ever...".
The scientists are eager to be able to launch their payloads as the large suite of parameters to be measured with these instruments they will be able to investigate in-situ such exceptional Arctic stratospheric conditions.
