News archive - November 2005
Vorcore campaign milestones (11/25/2005)
According to their organizers, the campaign was a technological success from the point of view of the operations in a so extreme weather, and also was immensely fruitful in the aspect of the human relations with their North American hosts. Now, the principal objective is to transform that technical event into a scientific triumph, analyzing and processing the obtained data. The final summary of the operations can be read at: http://www.lmd.polytechnique.fr/VORCORE/McMurdoE.htm. Also in the edition of October 30th, the virtual newspaper "Antarctic Sun" made a extensive coverage of the campaign. Our visitors can read that article at: http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/2005-2006/sctn10-30-2005.cfm. Upcoming campaigns (11/18/2005)In addition to the Antarctic operations been carried now, towards January 2006 will be some important activity in ESRANGE, in the north of Sweden with 2 campaigns: one destined to validate the AURA satellite data and another one with the same intention respect to its colleague ENVISAT. Also, the NASA will again carry out its transatlantic flights between ESRANGE and Canada with 2 launchings between February and March (JPL's OMS remote I & II) and maybe other two between May and June (AESOP/LEE and TRACER instruments). CNES's autumn campaign in Aire Sur L'Adour (11/4/2005)
Apparently only 3 balloons have been launched,the first on September 22th corresponding to a technological flight, and the two remaining on October 7th carriying the SAOZ instrument in a balloon and the ELHYSA instrument in other on the same day. The remaining planned flights have apparently cancelled due to the adverse climatic factors already mentioned. The image that illustrates this information was obtained by Bertrand Gaubicher, main technician of instrument ELHYSA an published in its Web site Zebulong. |
McMurdo (Antarctica) : In spite of to have finalized the balloon launches a month ago, the VORCORE campaign has set two important milestones on November 25th: reached the first 100,000 observations and one of the first balloons launched broke the record of duration for a stratospheric superpressure balloon surpassing the mark of the 80 days. The remarkable issue is that still are circling the antarctic plateau other 16 balloons of the same kind. 
As our readers remember, throughout almost 80 days the team of scientists of the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique of the CNRS and technicians of the balloon division of space agency French CNES sent a total of 27 superpressure balloons, wich followed a circular pattern around the south pole called the Antarctic vortex.
Aire Sur L'Adour (FR) : It seems that the autumnal campaign of the French space agency has not continued mainly due to the bad atmospheric conditions. The news come from the Web site of the Laboratoire de Physique ET Chimie of l'Environnement - Orleans.