NASA launched the University of New Hampshire’s Advanced Scintillator Compton Telescope (ASCOT) on a heavy-lift scientific balloon at 8:13 a.m. EST, Thursday, July 5, from the agency’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Palestine, Texas. ASCOT is demonstrating new detector technologies for medium energy gamma-ray telescopes with the goal of improving efficiency and resolution. The telescope will fly to about 120,000 feet on a short duration flight to test these new technologies by imaging the Crab Nebula in a near-space environment. People can track the mission real-time here: https://go.nasa.gov/2KPzkOE
Today’s launch was the last planned from CSBF in 2018. NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program has a campaign underway in Sweden with one flight remaining. The program’s next major campaign kicks-off in August with eight flights planned from Fort Sumner, N.M.
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia manages the agency’s scientific balloon flight program with 10 to 15 flights each year from launch sites worldwide. Northrop Grumman, which operates NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, provides mission planning, engineering services and field operations for NASA’s scientific balloon program. The CSBF team has launched more than 1,700 scientific balloons in the over 35 years of operation.
For more information on NASA’s Balloon Program, visit: www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons