CREST balloon launched in Antarctica - 12/27/2011
Williams Field, McMurdo Station.- The first scientific mission of the 2011/2012 long duration balloon launch campaign of NASA in Antarctica was launched on Christmas day from Williams Field Airport, close to the McMurdo Antarctic Station, and at the time of this writing is following the usual counter clockwise flight path floating at ~119.000 ft.
But let's start from the beginning. What is CREST...?. The term stands for Cosmic Ray Electron Synchrotron Telescope and is a complex instrument that measures the flux of electrons at very high energies, in a region that has not yet been explored by other instruments. The technique used by CREST -the detection of synchrotron photons emitted by electrons in the Earth's magnetic field- has been suggested over the years but has never been fully exploited until its build. Althought a smaller version of CREST flew in a short duration mission in 2009, this is the first flight of the full fledged instrument. At right we can see a picture of it during a hang test previous to the launch.
Generally speaking, the campaign developed flawlessly but slowly. After reaching the ice in last November, the CREST team started to assemble the instrument without major difficulties and by early December it was fully operational. Meanwhile staff of NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in charge of launch operations worked on compacting the snow in the launch pad and watched closely the winds on altitude waiting for the formation of the polar vortex. By December 10 CREST was declared flight ready and started the long wait till launch. On December 11 was launched the first pathfinder balloon but it was shortlived so it was followed by a second one launched three days later. The last one showed a well stablished vortex above 120 kft.
While the CREST team continued to performing routine daily housekeeping maintenance on the instrument, a first launch opportunity arose on December 19 but was cancelled due to strong low level winds just before inflation start. Two days later a second chance appeared but after six hours was called off again by the low level winds. A third pathfinder was launched on Christmas eve -this time to test not only the winds but a new balloon design- and the next day finally was the turn for CREST which succesfuly started it's journey to the stratosphere on December 25. At left a picture of the inflation process.
CREST is a cooperative development carried out by the Indiana University along with the University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Pennsylvania State University, University of Minnesota and the Northern Kentucky University.
Now it's the turn for STO (Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory) but I'm afraid that they are having a few complications to get it's gear ready. More to come.
RED BULL STRATOS balloon test in New Mexico...? - 12/17/2011
Roswell, New Mexico.- As was informed in a not much spreaded news release published by the KRQE TV station from Albuquerque (NM) in their website, on the morning of December 15th there was an attempt to launch a stratospheric balloon from the Roswell Industrial Air Center.
The mission was related to the Red Bull Stratos project being carried out by the Austrian extreme sportsman Felix Baumgartner who plans to jump from a capsule hanging from a stratospheric balloon at 120.000 feet, wearing a full pressure suit, from a yet undisclosed spot in the United States.
According to the publication, the only information that the station obtained from Red Bull spokesperson was that effectivelly they had a crew working in Roswell on that date and that the balloon launch was "to test technical equipment". However she would not say whether the team was specifically working on the Stratos project.
Along with the publication was a video of a TV segment presenting the information on which where displayed two stills (reproduced here by courtesy of the station) of the launch procedure obtained using a cellphone camera probably by personel of the airport. That same staff informed KRQE TV that although the mission was intended to reach high altitude (a fact deduced probably from the mandatory NOTAMs emited for the flight) just after release from the spool the balloon collapsed, adding that the launch was "scratched," possibly due to winds, referring all other questions to Red Bull. Meanwhile, the mistery remains.
As you may remember from our past updates, the project suffered a big setback on October 2010 when a multi million dollar lawsuit was filed in a Californian court by Daniel Hogan who alleged that six years before, he pitched the idea of a similar high-altitude parachuting stunt to Red Bull. The company decided to stop the project immediatelly, resuming it nine months later when announced that the conflict was mutually resolved by the parties out of court and the lawsuit dismissed. However, after that incident, there were no new updates or press releases for the project and even the website built by the company for the effort was deactivated and the contents redirected to their main website.
Is the recent activity at Roswell an indication that the project is still alive...?
Time will tell.
