New Mexico Scientific Balloon Campaign Update – Sept. 15

NASA launched two scientific balloon missions from the agency’s Fort Sumner, New Mexico, launch facility Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025. This marks the first time two scientific balloons were launched on the same day since 2011.

The JPL-Remote mission launched at 10:12 a.m. EDT (8:12 a.m. MDT) Sept. 14, 2025. The balloon and payload reached a float altitude of 127,000 feet and flew for 12 hours, 58 minutes. The mission’s main goal is to measure how different gases are layered in Earth’s atmosphere to check satellite data and track long-term changes since 1989.

The Cosmic Dust Collection Project (CDCP) mission launched at 12:10 p.m. EDT (10:10 a.m. MDT). The balloon and payload reached a float altitude of 125,000 feet and flew for 8 hours, 36 minutes. The mission’s aimed to capture cosmic dust at different altitudes in Earth’s atmosphere to study how much of this dust has contaminated the stratosphere.

To follow the missions in the 2025 Fort Sumner campaign, visit NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website for real-time updates of balloons’ altitudes and locations during flight.

The High-Altitude Student Platform 2 (HASP2) successfully launched at 8:28 a.m. MDT (10:28 a.m. EDT) Thursday, Sept. 4 and reached a float altitude of nearly 122,000 feet. HASP remained in flight for a total of 11 hours,40 minutes. Science reports a successful flight. The balloon and payload have safely landed, and recovery efforts are underway.

The HASP2 program is a collaborative effort between Louisiana Space Grant Consortium at Louisiana State University (LaSPACE - LSU), NASA SMD: Astrophysics Division, NASA Balloon Program Office (BPO) and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) to develop and operate an inexpensive platform that can be used to flight test compact satellites, prototypes and other small payloads designed and built by students. The High Altitude Student Platform 2 (HASP2) is designed to carry up to twenty-four (24) student payloads at a time to an altitude of about 110,000 feet with flight durations of 15 to 20 hours.

Student Payloads and Organizations for 2025 include:

• Big Red Sat 1.5 – The University of Nebraska Lincoln
• STRAINS 4.0 – Sint-Pieters College Jett
• Bat Sat – University of Colorado, Colorado Springs
• FLC Ionizing Radiation vs Solar Insolation (IRSI) Experiment – Fort Lewis College
• Strato Sentinal – University of Boston Massachusetts
• Ozone Sensors Payload – University of North Florida
• Astrolab – Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería
• Spectra Solis – College of the Canyons
• Astro Tracker II - Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería
• MSTRI – McMaster University
•  OLIMPO - Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería