NASA Balloon Circumnavigates World in 16 Days
More than 16 days after lifting off from Wānaka, New Zealand, NASA’s football-stadium-sized super pressure balloon has completed its first full circumnavigation of the globe — a significant milestone for the test flight around the Southern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes. The balloon crossed the 169.24 east longitude line at 7:22 a.m. Saturday, May 3 (U.S. Eastern Time).
“I am very proud of the mission’s continued success, which is directly reflected in the excellence of our dedicated operations and engineering team,” said Gabriel Garde, chief of NASA’s Balloon Program Office at the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. “Both the balloon and science instruments have been functioning well during the test flight.”
While the mission has successfully met its minimum requirements for science and qualification of the balloon, the team has been monitoring minor performance issues and has verified that the system has a small leak. The balloon has been maintaining its predicted float altitude during daytime hours; however, during the latest night periods, the balloon started showing a considerable drop in altitude, especially as it passed over areas of colder temperatures like storm systems. All ballast — extra weights added to the balloon gondola — has been expended to manage altitude stability.
Teams will continue to closely monitor the health and performance of the balloon as it continues flight, and its ability to safely make it to land for recovery of the balloon and payload. The next land crossing would occur over South America in approximately five days.
“While we have experienced some issues in altitude performance, the balloon structure and its design have performed very well giving us significant confidence in the viability of the platform to support science,” said Garde. “It will still be several days before we overfly land again, and we are looking toward recovering our hardware and assessing the systems.”
The super pressure balloon is an 18.8-million-cubic-foot (532,000-cubic-meter) pressurized flight vehicle designed to float at a constant density altitude despite the heating and cooling of the day-night cycle. This positive pressure, along with the stratospheric conditions in the Southern Hemisphere, enables long-duration mid-latitude flights.
While the primary goal of the flight is to further test and qualify the super pressure balloon technology, the balloon is also carrying the High-altitude Interferometer Wind Observation (HIWIND) mission of opportunity, led by the High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The HIWIND payload is measuring neutral wind in the part of Earth’s atmosphere called the thermosphere. Understanding these winds will help scientists predict changes in the ionosphere, which can affect communication and navigation systems.
To track the real-time location of the balloon, click here.
For more information on NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program, visit: www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons.
