Last balloon campaign in Japan (10/28/2005)

Sanriku (Japan) : Last August, was held the second annual campaign of stratospheric balloon launches made by space agency Japanese JAXA, from the Sanriku Balloon Center, in the northeast coast of the country. The campaign was delayed due to a strong earthquake undergone in the region on August 16th, but that did not cause greater damages to the balloon facilities of the agency in Iwate. The first launch stipulated for August 22th was aborted due to a balloon failure, nevertheless the instruments (destined to study electrons of high energy and atmospheric gamma rays) did not suffer damage, and will be flown in the incoming year.

After this, was experienced another delay by the passage of a typhoon, until finally on August 28th, the first successful launch was acomplished. The balloon -destined to observe the atmospheric gravity waves and the stratospheric ozone- was a BU60 model (see image) made of a ultrathin material that allowed to reach a height of 51,5 km. In 2002 that same kind of balloon breaked the world altitude record por unmanned balloons reaching a height of 53 km. On August 29th, was successfully launched the second balloon of the campaign, carrying on board a experience whose objective was the observation of low frequency radio transmissions originated in storms and lightning.

Finally, the last flight of the campaign whose objective was to carry tests of a new microgravity system had to be delayed until 2006 , due to the degradation of the atmospheric conditions.