FORT SUMNER, N.M.—The Balloon Rapid Response for ISON (BRRISON) payload suffered an anomaly following launch Sept. 28 from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, N.M., preventing the payload from collecting mission data.
Approximately two and a half hours after BRRISON’s launch, the 0.8-meter telescope on the gondola returned to a stowed position too rapidly, driving the telescope past a stow latch. The telescope was unable to be redeployed despite numerous attempts by the BRRISON team from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which built BRRISON for NASA.
An Interim Response Team will assess the BRRISON payload during recovery operations later today.
BRRISON was launched to study the rare sun-grazing Oort Cloud Comet ISON and other objects with both infrared and ultraviolet/visible light instruments.