STRATOSPHERIC BALLOON BASES IN THE WORLD

The first launches of stratospheric balloons carried out in Baurú were performed under overseen of the Balloon Launch Group (Grupo de Lançamento de Balões or GLB) created in 1991 from a collaboration project between the Academy of Sciences from Russia and the University of Campinas (UNICAMP). These two institutions together organized a balloon launch campaign named "BrasSov 91" between October and November of 1991.

For this campaign, the Universidade Estadual Paulista "Julio de Mesquita Filho", counting on the available facilities in the Instituto de Pesquisas Meteorológicas (IPMet) located in the outskirts of the city of Baurú in the Sao Paulo state, Brasil, and the scientific support of the Instituto de Fisica Teórica (IFT), provided the means for launch 3 balloons and the successful recovery of all the scientific instruments. This early experience allowed to collect important data of cosmic rays flows and gamma rays, as well as of the ozone concentration and the earth's electric field terrestrial, but still more important revealed the need for a permanent balloon launch base for this kind of activities. That was the birth of the GLB.

Soon, in 1993 and thanks to the resources granted by the UNESP and Fundación de Amparo a la Investigación do Estado de São Paulo-FAPESP, was built the main infrastructure consisting in a operations building (image at right) and the launch area (image at left). Later, were added devices for the handling of the ballloons and positioning systems, as well as telemetry and telecommunications systems for they pursuit and recovery.

In 1995 the activities of the GLB started through an agreement established with the Service of Aeronomy of the French Centre National of Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), allowing the accomplishment of the Ozono'95 campaign. By 1997, along with the CNRS and with the participation of different international scientific organizations, a new campaign named SRS (Stratospheric Regular Soundings) was made consolidating the operational qualification of the GLB base in the intertropical region.

Since then, different projects on atmospheric research had been developed using balloons launched from there, mainly through agreements of cooperation with the French space agency (CNES) like the one performed in 2000 (SWWS 2000), 2001 (Pre Hibiscus), 2003 (Envisat Pre-Hibiscus) and 2004 (Hibiscus - Troccinox), all involving local flights as well as long duration ones.

During the international campaigns the GLB had the support of the local airport on issues related to aerial security, and a helicopter of the Brazilian Air Force to recover the scientific payloads as soon as posible.

In mid-2000s, and after the retirement of its head researcher Dr. Bui Van Ngan André, the GLB ceased to exist as an operating group within the structure of IPMET. The building that once served for the integration of payloads and material collection operations nowadays is home to the "Observatorio Astronómico didático Lionel José Andriatto".

The disarticulation of the GLB however did not mean the end of the activity with balloons there. Almost eight years after the last campaign, a new scientific initiative used again the weeded area adjacent to IPMET to make several flights of small-sized balloons. This launches were part of a study of the tropical area called TRO-PICO focused on analyzing the impact of tropical convection overshooting in the stratospheric moisture balance at both local and wide scales.

The initiative carried out by several research institutes and universities from France performed more than thirty balloon flights between 2012 and 2013.