August 23rd Daily e-mail.

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

Payload 3E came down yesterday at about 18:37 UT . We saw a lot of great stuff during it's flight and hopefully this is a good sign for the next one. 

No launch tomorrow, but we're shooting for one Friday morning. We'll keep you updated as we here more. 

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  22.1 C
Wind speed:  2.3 m/s with a max of 3.8 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround may be here but the winds are still fast and unpredictable. They haven't yet seemed to set up, but here's hoping!

Payloads up: Next possible launch Tuesday

Payloads coming/which came down:3A launched at ~ 13:50 UT on August 10th and terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B launched at ~4:30 UT on August 13th and terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

3C launched at ~12:10 UT on August 17th and terminated at about 03:33 UT on August 18th. 

3D launched at ~6:02 UT on August 19th and terminated at about 12:50 UT on August 19th. 

3E  Launched at 7:05 UT on August 21st and terminated at about 18:37UT on August 22nd.  

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

There will be new collection times. See the toban report. 

News from MMS: 
No new news.

News from THEMIS: 

No new News

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  We may have caught a conjunction with Cluster on the 21st! 

News from Firebird:

Summary
They have about 2 weeks left in their memory and are currently downloading data. 

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew and Bern - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

No new News 

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
Lost of structure going on in the raw data but no EMIC waves or broad band stuff seen in the spectrogram. 

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

Some nice EMIC waves seen from about 03:00 - 15:00 UT on the 22nd at most of the magnetometers. 

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

The data haven't yet been updated for the 21st. or 22nd yet. 

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV seem to be depleted from yesterday. But there's been a lot of structure so hopefully they will increase as the high speed stream starts to hit the Earth's magnetosphere. 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 570.5 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 3.8 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
72. The large beta-gamma sunspot labeled 2403 is still growing and starting to get to the center of the sun. 

Flare activity:
There was a C6 flare this morning. 

Kp:
kp =  5 with a 24 hour max of kp = 6

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 1.7 nT north

Btotal =  6.5 nT 

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. There is also a second coral hole which is a bit smaller but at the solar equator which is starting to possibly become Earth directed. The current Earthward facing coronal hole is expected to hit around the 22nd  or 23rd.  

AE:

There have been a couple of nice enhancements starting at about 7:00 UT. 

Dst:

Dst reached -40 nT this morning but appears to be recovering now.  

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 22nd Daily e-mail.

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

Payload 3E is still up! We were able to recover from our drop in altitude last night! We are back up above 30 km, and actually pretty close to our float altitude. We're currently at about 34 km and have a very slow ascent rate up, so maybe we'll get back even a bit more ground (or sky?). However, we've gone quiet a bit far south and may soon start to get close to some towns. Fingers crossed we go perhaps a bit more North and East, or slowly West. Actually lets just hope that we stay within the wilderness. 

No news yet on whether we'll launch on Monday or Tuesday, but we'll be able to say more after tomorrow's MET briefing. 

Have a great weekend!

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  15.3 C
Wind speed:  0.1 m/s with a max of 1.2 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround may be here but the winds are still fast and unpredictable. They haven't yet seemed to set up, but here's hoping!

Payloads up: Next possible launch Monday 
3E  Launched at 7:05 UT on August 21st.

Payloads coming/which came down:3A launched at ~ 13:50 UT on August 10th and terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B launched at ~4:30 UT on August 13th and terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

3C launched at ~12:10 UT on August 17th and terminated at about 03:33 UT on August 18th. 

3D launched at ~6:02 UT on August 19th and terminated at about 12:50 UT on August 19th. 

Recent possible events: 
Payload 3A: August 10 2015 ~15:30  - 18:00 UT clear precipitation in FSPC1a, b, c and FSPC 2 Possibly some nice ULF waves

Payload 3A: August 10 2015 18:40 - 19:00 FSPC1a, b, c, FSPC 2, and possibly in FSPC3 and 4 as well 

Payload 3A: August 10 2015 19:15 - 20:30 UT FSPC1a, b, c, FSPC 2, and again possibly in FSPC3 and 4 as well. Again some ULF wave structure. 

Payload 3B August 13th 06:30 -11:20  It looks like there may have been microbursts in both the FSPC1 and FSPC2 files.

Payload 3B August 13th 13:20 - 16:00 UT An increase in FSPC 1 possibly FSPC2. 

Payload 3C August 17th 13:40 - 14:00 UT an increase in all 4 energy channels. 

Payload 3C August 17th 14:30 - 22:30 UT an increase in FSPC1 and FSPC 2 energy channels. Every once in awhile it looks like there were increases in the FSPC 3 and 4 channels as well. 

Payload 3D August 19th 7:15 - 12:40 UT an increase in the FSPC1 and FSPC2 channels. 

Payload 3E August 21st 08:30 - 13:30 UT an increase in the FSPC-1 channel. It looks like there are a few microbursts; fewer than observed on the 13th. There are other time periods observed as well throughout the event. 

Payload 3E August 21st 19:05 - 19:40 a tiny fluctuation in the FSPC 1 and maybe the FSPC 2 channels. 

Payload 3E August 22nd 0530 - 0545 UT An increase in the FSPC1 and 2 channels. 

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

There will be new collection times. See the toban report. 

Collection times for EFW:

August 10th
RBSP-A 2015-08-10 (good MMS conjunction) 12:25-20:00 @4096
RBSP-B: 11:30-18:45 @4096 

August 13th 

RBSP-A: 12:15-19:20 @4096
RBSP-B: 11:30-18:40 @4096

August 15th

Both RBSP-A and RBSP-B: 01:35-05:35 (4 hrs) @16384 

Both RBSP-A and RBSP-B: 10:40-14:40 (4 hrs) @16384 

Both RBSP-A and RBSP-B: 19:30-23:30 (4 hrs) @16384  

August 16th
Both RBSP-A and RBSP-B: 11:30-19:30 (8 hrs) @4096

August 19th
Both RBSP-A and RBSP-B: 12:00-19:30

August 22nd
RBSP-A: 12:00-19:30
RBSP-B: 12:30-19:45

August 25thRBSP-A: 11:30-18:45 

RBSP-B: 12:30-20:00

News from MMS: 
No new news.

News from THEMIS: 

No new News

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  We may have caught a conjunction with Cluster yesterday! 

News from Firebird:

Summary
No new news

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew and Bern - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

No new News 

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
There was maybe a small substorm last night but it looks quiet now. It does look like there was a nice strong EMIC wave this morning starting at 3:00.

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

There was an EMIC wave before we launched yesterday but it seems pretty quiet for the rest of the day. 

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

The data haven't yet been updated for the 21st. 

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV are still elevated.

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 379.8 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 10.2 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
78. The new large beta-gamma sunspot labeled 2403 is still growing. It's still not Earth facing, but should be sometime next week. 

Flare activity:
There was an M class flare this morning. 

Kp:
kp =  1 with a 24 hour max of kp = 2

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 2.2 nT South

Btotal =  6.6 nT 

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. There is also a second coral hole which is a bit smaller but at the solar equator which is starting to possibly become Earth directed. The current Earthward facing coronal hole is expected to hit around the 21st or 22nd. 

AE:

AE may show the start of a small substorm.    

Dst:

Dst is currently quiet. 

Daily BARREL check in information: No Telecon this weekend.

Time: 7pm Kiruna time (13:00 Dartmouth time, 12:00 Minneapolis/Iowa time, 11:00 University of Colorado Boulder, 10:00 Berkley time). 

Phone number +1 641-715-3580

Access code 481960

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 21st Daily e-mail

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

We launched payload 3E today at about 7:05 UT. The payload is currently up but still has a bit of a northward component. We're hoping that it is going to continue to go more East and maybe a bit south so that we can get an even longer flight. 

We saw a GRB on August 19th at around 10:30 on 3D. 

As requested, here is the link to our CDF files for all campaigns. http://barreldata.ucsc.edu/data_products/v05/l2/

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  23.0 C
Wind speed:  1.1 m/s with a max of 3.7 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround may be here but the winds are still fast and unpredictable. They are currently heading North. 

Payloads up: Next possible launch Monday 
3E  Launched at 7:05 UT on August 21st.

Payloads coming/which came down:3A launched at ~ 13:50 UT on August 10th and terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B launched at ~4:30 UT on August 13th and terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

3C launched at ~12:10 UT on August 17th and terminated at about 03:33 UT on August 18th. 

3D launched at ~6:02 UT on August 19th and terminated at about 12:50 UT on August 19th. 

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

Some new times for collection added. EMFISIS saw a lot of activity on the 17th. 

News from MMS: 
No new news.

News from THEMIS: 

No new News

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  We may have caught a conjunction with Cluster today! 

News from Firebird:

Summary
No new news

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew and Bern - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

No new News 

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
There was a nice substorm and EMIC wave last night. Currently the magnetic field is still disturbed, but not much. 

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

It looks like there was an EMIC wave maybe in the dawn sector yesterday, but also at noon yesterday as well. 

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

It looks like there was some nice precipitation throughout the day at IVA, SOD, ROV, and OUL. 

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV appear to be enhanced and climbing at the moment. 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 463.3 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 3.0 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
68. There is a new large beta-gamma sunspot labeled 2403. It is not currently Earth-direced. 

Flare activity:
Very quiet... 

Kp:
kp =  1 with a 24 hour max of kp = 3

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 2.8 nT North

Btotal =  4.9 nT 

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. It is more poleward, but much larger than the last. There is a second coral hole which is a bit smaller but at the solar equator which is starting to possibly become Earth directed. The current Earthward facing coronal hole is expected to hit around the 21st or 22nd. 

AE:

AE is very quiet.   

Dst:

Dst is currently quiet. 

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 20th Daily e-mail.

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

Kathryn rescued payload 3D today while the rest of us got ready for tomorrows launch. 

According to ENLIL it looks like starting late tonight we'll start seeing some higher velocity solar wind speeds. The peaks seem to be at right about midnight, early morning on the 20th and then another on the 23rd. It looks like there may be an even larger (broader?) and faster high speed stream coming shortly after the 25th. Definitely something to look forward to. 

As requested yesterday, here is the link to our CDF files for all campaigns. http://barreldata.ucsc.edu/data_products/v05/l2/

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  24.5 C
Wind speed:  1.4 m/s with a max of 2.7 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround may be here but the winds are still fast and unpredictable. 

Payloads up: Next possible launch Friday morning 9am. 

Payloads coming/which came down:3A launched at ~ 13:50 UT on August 10th and terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B launched at ~4:30 UT on August 13th and terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

3C launched at ~12:10 UT on August 17th and terminated at about 03:33 UT on August 18th. 

3D launched at ~6:02 UT on August 19th and terminated at about 12:50 UT on August 19th. 

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

Some new times for collection added. EMFISIS saw a lot of activity on the 17th. 

News from MMS: 
No new news.

News from THEMIS: 

No new News

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  Just a comment about Cluster : A conjunction is possible on 20 and 21 (not so close on 20), but there are no conjunction possible with Cluster before 20-21 August. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
No new news

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew and Bern - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

No new News 

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
It looks like there it is starting to get active (Yay as we finally have "night" and could potentially see the aurora.). It looks like there's an EMIC wave between 9-10 UT and another starting at about 12 and possibly have ended but the graph ends so it's hard to tell. 

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

It looks like there was some EMIC wave activity yesterday both in the morning before 3UT and again at about 22 UT but not while we were flying. 

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

It looks like there was some nice precipitation throughout the day at IVA, SOD, and OUL all seem to have observed at least some precipitation in the morning. 

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV appear to be enhanced and climbing at the moment. 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 455.3 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 2.3 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
36.  only one numbered sunspot.  

Flare activity:
Very quiet... 

Kp:
kp =  2 with a 24 hour max of kp = 3

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 7.6 nT South

Btotal =  4.9 nT 

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. It is more poleward, but much larger than the last. There is a second coral hole which is a bit smaller but at the solar equator which is starting to possibly become Earth directed. The current Earthward facing coronal hole is expected to hit around the 21st or 22nd. 

AE:

It looks like we may have just had a nice substorm activity  

Dst:

With Dst having reach > -10 nT I think we can say that the last storm or two has recovered. 

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 19th Daily e-mail.

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

This morning we launched payload 3D at about 8:02 Local time (6:02 UT). It was cut down just moments ago at about  12:50 UT. 

We may try for a launch on Friday morning. There is also the possibility of a high speed stream encountering the Earth at about that time.  

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  23.0 C
Wind speed:  1.1 m/s with a max of 2.8 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround may be here but the winds are fast and unpredictable. 

Payloads up: Next possible launch Friday morning 9am. 

Payloads coming/which came down:3A launched at ~ 13:50 UT on August 10th and terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B launched at ~4:30 UT on August 13th and terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

3C launched at ~12:10 UT on August 17th and terminated at about 03:33 UT on August 18th. 

3D launched at ~6:02 UT on August 19th and terminated at about 12:50 UT on August 19th. 

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

Some new times for collection added. EMFISIS saw a lot of activity on the 17th. 

News from MMS: 
No new news.

News from THEMIS: 

No new News

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  Just a comment about Cluster : A conjunction is possible on 20 and 21 (not so close on 20), but there are no conjunction possible with Cluster before 20-21 August. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
No new news

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew and Bern - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

No new News 

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
It looks like there was a substorm or some other activity last night. It also looked like there may have been an EMIC wave from about midnight to 3UT. 

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

Lots of broad band ULF power yesterday but no EMIC waves. 

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

It looks like there was some nice precipitation throughout the day at IVA, SOD, and ROV. 

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV seem to be recovering but there is still a lot of structure. 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 459.5 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 3.6 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
20.  only one numbered sunspot.  

Flare activity:
Very quiet... 

Kp:
kp =  2 with a 24 hour max of kp = 3

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 6.7 nT South

Btotal =  8.1 nT 

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. It is more poleward, but much larger than the last. There is a second coral hole which is a bit smaller but at the solar equator which is starting to possibly become Earth directed. The current Earthward facing coronal hole is expected to hit around the 21st or 22nd. 

AE:

AE is quieting down compared to the last couple of days. 

Dst:

The Dst may have had a minor storm depending on if you say that it's still in the recovery phase of the August15/16th storm or not. We reached a min. Dst of -54 nT this morning at about 6 UT. 

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 18th Daily e-mail.

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

Yesterday we had our third launch, payload 3C. It lasted for almost 16 hours and had activity again for almost the entire flight. It was terminated this morning at about 5:30 local time. We'll recovery the payload tomorrow. It landed at most 1.5 km from the road. 

No launch today but we're going to try for a launch tomorrow morning. The Sun appears to be quiet at the moment. However there are a few coronal holes which may produce some high speed streams by the 19th and increasing through the 21st according to the WSA-ENLIL model. 

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  22.7 C
Wind speed:  1.9 m/s with a max of 3.5 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround is almost here! We expect to see it on Monday. 

Payloads up: Next possible launch Monday mid day/early afternoon. 
3C launched at ~12:10 UT on August 17th.

Payloads coming/which came down:3A terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

3C terminated at about 03:33 UT on August 18th. 

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

Some new times for collection added. EMPHASIS saw a lot of activity on the 17th. 

News from MMS: 
No new news.

News from THEMIS: 

No new News

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  Just a comment about Cluster : A conjunction is possible on 20 and 21 (not so close on 20), but there are no conjunction possible with Cluster before 20-21 August. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
No new news

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew and Bern - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

EISCAT was able to capture most of yesterday's event. 

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
The activity in the magnetometer seems to be recovering. Still no EMIC waves. 

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

Lots of broad band ULF power but no EMIC waves. 

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

It looks like there was some nice precipitation earlier in the day yesterday, but t seems to have died down by about 15:00 UT.  

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV are still elevated.  

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 449.5 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 2.4 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
20. Apparently this is the fewest sunspots the Sun has had in 2015.  

Flare activity:
Very quiet... 

Kp:
kp =  2 with a 24 hour max of kp = 4

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 1.6 nT South

Btotal =  3.6 nT

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. It is more poleward, but much larger than the last. There is a second coral hole which is a bit smaller but at the solar equator which is starting to possibly become Earth directed. 

AE:

AE is quieting down compared to the last couple of days. 

Dst:

The Dst appears to still be slowly recovering and is now at -15 nT. 

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 17th Daily e-mail

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

What a day! We had a great launch and once again seem to have landed in the middle of some great space weather! The payload has been up for about 4 and a half hours and seems to be going strong. 

No launch for tomorrow, but there may be a possibility for a launch on the 19th. 

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  21.4 C
Wind speed:  0.3 m/s with a max of 1.7 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround is almost here! We expect to see it on Monday. 

Payloads up: Next possible launch Monday mid day/early afternoon. 
3C launched at ~12:10 UT on August 17th.

Payloads coming/which came down:3A terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

Some new times for collection added. 

News from MMS: 
MMS will be in good position around 09:00 to 11:00 UT. Burst data will not be available until at the end of that window, but we can look for 1030 – 1230 UT, or so and again later around 1400, when VAP will be back in position.

News from THEMIS: 

From Xiaojia - I have put together a couple of close conjunctions (in L) between three probes of THEMIS and this BARREL balloon, assuming that you launch at early local morning on August 7th and the geographic location is stabilized at esrange. Currently the THEMIS Ops team are working on implementing special time-based particle burst captures (at 128 Hz) during these intervals. 

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  There will be no conjunctions on August 20th or 21st. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
From Alex Crew - FIREBIRD is still getting down context (low-rate data) for these periods but we will hopefully (probably tomorrow am around the telecon) commence getting down some hi-res data from this interval [likely ~1920 UT...]

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

EISCAT is running for this event! 

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
There is definitely a storm going on. No strong signatures of EMIC waves, but there may be something, but it's very close to the bottom and may be just part of the broad band activity.

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

only broad band data from either the 16th or 15th. Hopefully tomorrow we'll know if they saw EMIC waves.  

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

It looks like there was at least some precipitation during this storm :) 

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV are growing and the > 2 MeV electrons are almost an order of magnitude above the electron event threshold.  

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 555.7 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 2.6 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
32- number 2396 is officially off the face of the Sun. 

Flare activity:
Very quiet... 

Kp:
kp =  5 with a 24 hour max of kp = 5

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 0.3 nT north

Btotal =  5.1 nT 

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. It is more poleward, but much larger than the last. 

AE:

Quiet active! It looks like there is a substorm going on right now. 

Dst:

Definitely recovering. Currently at -36 nT

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 16th Daily e-mail.

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

There is no telecom today. They will resume on Monday. 

This storm seems to keep growing! hopefully we'll get some great activity if we can launch tomorrow!

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  11.3 C
Wind speed:  4.1 m/s with a max of 4.9 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround is almost here! We expect to see it on Monday. 

Payloads up: Next possible launch Monday mid day/early afternoon. 

Payloads coming/which came down:3A terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

Some new times for collection added. 

News from MMS: 
MMS will be in good position around 09:00 to 11:00 UT. Burst data will not be available until at the end of that window, but we can look for 1030 – 1230 UT, or so and again later around 1400, when VAP will be back in position.

News from THEMIS: 

From Xiaojia - I have put together a couple of close conjunctions (in L) between three probes of THEMIS and this BARREL balloon, assuming that you launch at early local morning on August 7th and the geographic location is stabilized at esrange. Currently the THEMIS Ops team are working on implementing special time-based particle burst captures (at 128 Hz) during these intervals. 

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  There is sadly no conjunction possible for a possible launch on 10 August. But the first good one is on 12 August at around 11 UT. Which with 6 balloons total is a definite possibility. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
From Alex Crew - FIREBIRD is still getting down context (low-rate data) for these periods but we will hopefully (probably tomorrow am around the telecon) commence getting down some hi-res data from this interval [likely ~1920 UT...]

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

EISCAT had the weekend off so we'll update once we decide on the next round of  

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
There is definitely a storm going on. No EMIC waves since yesterday.

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

There were some nice EMIC waves yesterday at about the same time as the kiruna ones were occurring yesterday.   

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

There may have been some last night but we'll find out about today's storm. 

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV seem to be depleted but recovering slowly 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 496.4 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 3.0 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
33 - number 2396 is only barely viewable. 

Flare activity:
Very quiet... 

Kp:
kp =  5 with a 24 hour max of kp = 7

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 8.3 nT south

Btotal =  11.1 nT 

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. It's a bit on the small side. However it may hit August 16th or 17th. There is a larger but more poleward one almost to the middle of the earthward facing side. 

AE:

Quiet active! 

Dst:

Just reached -95  nT

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

BARREL updates August 15th 2015

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

It looks like there may be some good space weather at the moment, but we are not going to be able to launch tomorrow. Hopefully it continues into Monday. The ground winds are looking very high at the moment and the Stratospheric winds are fast and straight West which would give us only a few hour flight likely. However, Monday we hope to launch and it looks like Monday will be the first day of turnaround. We're hoping that we'll be getting much much longer flights from here on out. 

We have the KML files for both BARREL flight up on the drop box now. I just got the CDF files so for everyone waiting for more precise timing I'll get it to you as soon as possible.

There will be no telecom today or tomorrow. They will resume on Monday. 

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  14.4 C
Wind speed:  2.1 m/s with a max of 4.2 m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
Turnaround is almost here! We expect to see it on Monday. 

Payloads up: Next possible launch Monday mid day/early afternoon. 

Payloads coming/which came down:
3A terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th
3B terminated at about 17:18 UT on August 13th. 

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

Some new times for collection added. 

News from MMS: 
MMS will be in good position around 09:00 to 11:00 UT. Burst data will not be available until at the end of that window, but we can look for 1030 – 1230 UT, or so and again later around 1400, when VAP will be back in position.

News from THEMIS: 

From Xiaojia - I have put together a couple of close conjunctions (in L) between three probes of THEMIS and this BARREL balloon, assuming that you launch at early local morning on August 7th and the geographic location is stabilized at esrange. Currently the THEMIS Ops team are working on implementing special time-based particle burst captures (at 128 Hz) during these intervals. 

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  There is sadly no conjunction possible for a possible launch on 10 August. But the first good one is on 12 August at around 11 UT. Which with 6 balloons total is a definite possibility. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
From Alex Crew - FIREBIRD is still getting down context (low-rate data) for these periods but we will hopefully (probably tomorrow am around the telecon) commence getting down some hi-res data from this interval [likely ~1920 UT...]

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew - They had some great conjunctions and are now trying to get down the data. 

News from EISCAT

EISCAT had the weekend off so we'll update once we decide on the next round of  

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
There is definitely a storm going on and it looks like some EMIC waves from 8:30 - 10:30.  There might be on later near 12 but it's not clear if it's an EMIC wave or just part of the broadband stuff.

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

There were some nice EMIC waves yesterday from about 5UT till about 18UT depending on the station you looked at.  

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

There may have been some last night but we'll find out about today's storm. 

GOES Electron Flux:
Both >2MeV and >800 keV seem to be depleted. 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 471.0 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 5.7 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
46 - number 2396 is only barely viewable. 

Flare activity:
Very quiet... 

Kp:
kp =  7 with a 24 hour max of kp = 7

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 2.5 nT  north

Btotal =  20 nT

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. It's a bit on the small side. However it may hit August 16th or 17th. There is a larger but more poleward one almost to the middle of the earthward facing side. 

AE:

Quiet active! 

Dst:

reached -64 nT but currently at -57

Swedish Phrase of the day:

A street names down the road

här bor jag  = Here I live

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 12th BARREL Daily Burst Telecon/Status Report

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

We're going to try for another launch tomorrow! We'll have a bright and early morning, starting for us at 2:30am local time. We hope to have the balloon launched by 6:00 local time and at float by 8:00 local time. After about 9:00 local time, the ground winds are starting to look like they would be too high for a launch.  However, this should allow us to catch some southeasterly winds on the way up giving us *hopefully* a longer launch. Granted, as is stated over and over again in the MET meetings, this is turn around so the winds are getting to be unpredictable.  

As the satellite data is coming in, it looks like we got really lucky and had a great event. Thanks everyone for working so hard on this! 

Attached at the bottom is a map of the conjunction from August 10th. For some reason the symbols for the lines of constant L aren't working but the start at L = 8 for the orange and then steps of 1 L as you go lower in latitude. 

Let's hope that tomorrow is just as good! 

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  15.1 C
Wind speed:  4.9 m/s with a max of 7.4. m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
The winds are still looking a bit fast and westwardly, however the assent winds look stronger eastward. This should hopefully give us longer flights as once we hit float altitude we will be further south and east of Norway.

Payloads up: Possible launch of 3B tomorrow

Payloads coming/which came down:3A terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

Some new times for collection added.  

News from MMS: 
MMS will be in good position around 09:00 to 11:00 UT. Burst data will not be available until at the end of that window, but we can look for 1030 – 1230 UT, or so and again later around 1400, when VAP will be back in position.

News from THEMIS: 

From Xiaojia - I have put together a couple of close conjunctions (in L) between three probes of THEMIS and this BARREL balloon, assuming that you launch at early local morning on August 7th and the geographic location is stabilized at esrange. Currently the THEMIS Ops team are working on implementing special time-based particle burst captures (at 128 Hz) during these intervals. 

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  There is sadly no conjunction possible for a possible launch on 10 August. But the first good one is on 12 August at around 11 UT. Which with 6 balloons total is a definite possibility. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
From Alex Crew - FIREBIRD is still getting down context (low-rate data) for these periods but we will hopefully (probably tomorrow am around the telecon) commence getting down some hi-res data from this interval [likely ~1920 UT...]

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew - AC6 will be running in high rate mode for all of August, meaning they will have 10 Hz sampling rate.  

We had overhead conjunctions with AC6 (within +/-1 deg latitude and +/-1 hour local time) at 07:07 UT and 21:59 UT yesterday.  Once I have the magnetic coordinates of the balloon, I can calculate magnetic conjugacy conjunctions too.  Those will be sometime around: 09:45 UT and 19:21 UT, meaning that we had at least one (depending on how you define it) magnetic conjugate conjunction while the balloon was up and operating!

News from EISCAT

EISCAT will be running for at least part of the day tomorrow hoping to catch some more excellent data with BARREL.  

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
It looks like there was a substorm again last night at about 22:00 UT. No EMIC wave activity was observed in the last 24 hours.

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

Kilpisjarvi seems to have seen an EMIC waves around noon and ULF broad band power around 0300 UT and 2200 UT. The ULF broadband wave activity was seen at most of the other stations. 

Scandinavian Riometer data http://sgo.fi/Data/Riometer/latestRiometer.php

It looks like there was a bit of precipitation early in the morning around 0300UT, perhaps a bit around noon, and then again at around 2300 UT. This is the first time I've tried to read riometer data so please comment if there's something else I should be looking for than dips from the baseline in the raw data. 

GOES Electron Flux:
It looks like the GOES 2MeV electrons are starting to recover, but may still be reaching above the electron event threshold later today. The >800 keV electrons are looking like they may have recovered. 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 381.2. km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 4.4 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
87 - but there is one very big one (number 2396)

Flare activity:
Sunspot AR2396 is rotating off the Earthward side of the solar surface. 

Kp:
kp =  2 with a 24 hour max of kp = 3

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 4.7 nT  north

Btotal =  8.2 nT 

Coronal hole news
There is now an Earthward facing coronal hole. 

AE:

AE appears to be quiet. 

Dst:

Dst has remained very very very quiet. 

Swedish Phrase of the day:

From the ops room here at ESRANGE

Vad ska du göra (Pronunciation by Nick - "vahd skah doo YOUR-ah") = What are you going to do. 

It's part of a check list. Part  three will come tomorrow.

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 11th BARREL Daily Burst Telecon/Status Report

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

Our Balloon launch was very successful, especially for the randomness of turnaround. We were able to have the flight last about as long as the predictions had expected even though the flight path was at times wildly different.  

We had some good events and I believe we caught a good portion of the expected conjunctions with the Van Allen Probes, MMS, and EISCAT. Thanks all at EISCAT for making that happen! 

The rest of today and tomorrow morning are suppose to be rainy so we don't expect our next launch until Thursday morning. We'll say for sure if we will try for a launch on Thursday after tomorrows MET briefing. Of course the launch will be dependent on good ground weather.  

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  14.6 C
Wind speed:  1.8 m/s with a max of 4.1  m/s within the last five minutes or so.  

Stratospheric weather:
The winds are still strong and fast westwardly. The current predictions for a Thursday launch have a similar flight length and path as the predictions for yesterday's launch. We'll keep everyone updated as we learn more.

Payloads up: Next possible launch date August 13th

Payloads coming down:3A terminated at about 20:30 UT on August 10th

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

EMPHISIS - Attached is a survey plot for SCB from 11:00 to 20:00 on 8/10.  We do not have all our burst data down yet so I can't say much about that besides that we see a lot of hiss from 13:00 to 14:30

It appears to me that we in a plasmaspheric plume from ~14:45 to 16:00.  There is some very weak chorus just before we entered the plume, from ~12:30 to 13:00, and some stronger chorus from ~16:45 to 17:30.

EFW - New collections for August 13th and 15th. Playbacks scheduled for August 7th. 

News from THEMIS: 

From Xiaojia - I have put together a couple of close conjunctions (in L) between three probes of THEMIS and this BARREL balloon, assuming that you launch at early local morning on August 7th and the geographic location is stabilized at esrange. Currently the THEMIS Ops team are working on implementing special time-based particle burst captures (at 128 Hz) during these intervals. 

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  There is sadly no conjunction possible for a possible launch on 10 August. But the first good one is on 12 August at around 11 UT. Which with 6 balloons total is a definite possibility. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
From Alex Crew - Firebird is currently taking data.

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew - AC6 will be running in high rate mode for all of August, meaning they will have 10 Hz sampling rate.

News from EISCAT

We were able to have EISCAT running for most of the time that the 3A was aloft. We were a bit southeast of the Tromso EISCAT, and right over the Kiruna EISCAT but we should be fairly close either way to the mapping back out to the magnetic equator. We still have a bit more time on EISCAT for other balloon flights. 

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
A nice Substorm yesterday in the magnetometer day. No EMIC waves were seen on the ground at Kiruna yesterday or today. The local Kp seemed to be around 2 or 3 during the flight yesterday.

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

The Finish magnetometer array did not seem to observe any EMIC waves during the flight yesterday. Earlier in the day there was some stronger ULF broad band noise. 

GOES Electron Flux:
GOES 2 MeV electrons are again heading into an electron event, and it looks like for most if not all of the flight yesterday we were in an electron event for the greater than 2 MeV electrons. The greater than 800 keV electrons came close to the event threshold but have yet to surpass it. 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 457.7. km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 4.8 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
67 - but there is one very big one (number 2396)

Flare activity:
Sunspot AR2396 is still large and quiet. It is starting to rotate out of producing a completely Earth directed CME, but could still produce something that hits us. It did produce a number of B class flares throughout the last few days. 

Kp:
kp =  2 with a 24 hour max of kp = 3

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 0.4 nT  north

Btotal =  4. nT 

Coronal hole news
There are no large coronal holes currently on the Earthward facing side of the Sun. There is one small one though that seems to be moving into the middle of the Earthward facing side of the Sun. 

AE:

AE appears to be quiet. 

Dst:

Dst is has remained very very very quiet. 

Swedish Phrase of the day:

From the ops room here at ESRANGE

Vad ska du göra (Pronunciation by Nick - "vahd skah doo YOUR-ah") = What are you going to do. 

It's part of a check list. Part  three will come tomorrow.

Hej då och god kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

August 10th BARREL Daily Burst Telecon/Status Report

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

We got our first balloon launched! As far as I know at this moment it is heading East towards Finland. We hope it stays that way for a bit before heading quickly West. When I hear an update I'll try to pass it along as quickly as I can to you all. I'll also try to get one before the telecom. 

We will not be having a launch tomorrow morning. We'll reconven tomorrow at 2pm to decide on Wed. 

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  17.7 C
Wind speed:  1.9 m/s with a max of 4  m/s within the last five minutes or so.  Currently Tuesday looks like some rain and higher ground wind speeds. We do not plan to launch on Tuesday morning. There is a very small possibility of a Tuesday midnight launch, but that is very small... 

Stratospheric weather:
The winds are still strong and fast westwardly. We tried a bit different inflation so that hopefully it will stay at lower altitudes for a longer period of time. This will allow us to move further East before turning West.

Payloads up: First possible launch date August 10th
3A

Payloads coming down:3A is likely to come down before midnight, probably quiet a bit earlier.

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

They are confirming when there may have been lightning and burst taken, and if they can see any lightning induced whistlers. 

News from THEMIS: 

From Xiaojia - I have put together a couple of close conjunctions (in L) between three probes of THEMIS and this BARREL balloon, assuming that you launch at early local morning on August 7th and the geographic location is stabilized at esrange. Currently the THEMIS Ops team are working on implementing special time-based particle burst captures (at 128 Hz) during these intervals. 

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  There is sadly no conjunction possible for a possible launch on 10 August. But the first good one is on 12 August at around 11 UT. Which with 6 balloons total is a definite possibility. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
From Alex Crew - Firebird is currently taking data.

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew - AC6 will be running in high rate mode for all of August, meaning they will have 10 Hz sampling rate.

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
The magnetic field has just had a larg(ish) positive deviation and the local Kp is at about 4. There is no ULF wave activity at the moment though.

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

Yesterday there was some periods of broad band power observed as well as potentially a little EMIC wave between about 14 - 15 UT> 

GOES Electron Flux:
GOES 2 MeV electrons appear to be above the threshold for an electron event! Hopefully this is a good sign that we'll see some REPs on this flight! 

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 465.8 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 5.3 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
87 - but there is one very big one (number 2396)

Flare activity:
Sunspot AR2396 has simplified it's magnetic field signature, but is still apparently in it's growth phase. This sunspot is not a bit over half way around the observable disk. If it produces something within the next day or two there is a chance that it would be Earth directed. The rest of the magnetic field spots are all considered stable. Currently we have a 35% chance of an M class flare and a 5% chance of an X-class flare. 

Kp:
kp =  2 with a 24 hour max of kp = 3

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 1.6 nT  north

Btotal =  4.5 nT 

Coronal hole news
There are no large coronal holes currently on the Earthward facing side of the Sun. But there should be another positive polarity solar wind high speed stream reaching us today or tomorrow. 

AE:

appears to be quiet. 

Dst:

Dst is currently very quiet. 

Swedish Phrase of the day:

From the ops room here at ESRANGE

Vad har du gjort  - what have you done 

It's part of a check list. Parts two and three will come tomorrow when I remember to write the rest of it down. 

Hej då och bra kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team. 

Launch update!

We launched our first payload, and I'm sure Kathryn will have many more great photos to share, but I wanted to let you all know. 3A is up at float altitude and doing well. We were originally thinking that we may only be able to get a 4 hour flight if we were lucky. However, it's just sitting there and we seem to be getting some fantastic data!

Hopefully it will still be up when we wake up tomorrow morning!

Have a good night!

Alexa

August 8th BARREL Daily Burst Telecon/Status Report

Hej och god morgon (Hi and good morning), 

Update Summary

Today turned out to be much nicer than the predictions, but a bit windy. Tomorrow we'll have the flight predictions for Monday, and if the ground weather is good, we'll try for a launch. 

We'll have a quick telecom tomorrow to update everyone on the launch possibilities and where the new high speed stream is relative to Earth according to ENIL.  

Let's hope for clear skies and low winds! 

News from Kiruna
Ground Weather:

http://www.irf.se/weather/
Temp.:  12.8 C
Wind speed:  3.4 m/s with a max of 7.1  m/s within the last five minutes or so.  Currently Monday looks like a bit cloudy 

Precipitation (rain):  0.0 mm 

Stratospheric weather:
The winds look like they haven't yet quiet set up. They are heading west and would only give us about a 10 hour flight at maximum.  We'll find out more tomorrow.

Payloads up: First possible launch date August 10th
N/A

Payloads coming down:N/A

News from Van Allen Probes:
Summary

They are confirming when there may have been lightning and burst taken, and if they can see any lightning induced whistlers. 

News from THEMIS: 

From Xiaojia - I have put together a couple of close conjunctions (in L) between three probes of THEMIS and this BARREL balloon, assuming that you launch at early local morning on August 7th and the geographic location is stabilized at esrange. Currently the THEMIS Ops team are working on implementing special time-based particle burst captures (at 128 Hz) during these intervals. 

News from Cluster:

From Fabien -  There is sadly no conjunction possible for a possible launch on 10 August. But the first good one is on 12 August at around 11 UT. Which with 6 balloons total is a definite possibility. 

News from Firebird:

Summary
From Alex Crew - As of noon Pacific yesterday, FIREBIRD had one last set of downlinks to make tonight, after which we anticipate clearing each spacecraft's memory during Friday's passes at which point they will automatically commence taking data. In the current data-taking mode, it is expected that the memory will last for approximately ~1 month of operations. I will update after we have completed the reset.

News from AeroCube 6
From Drew - AC6 will be running in high rate mode for all of August, meaning they will have 10 Hz sampling rate.

Space Weather  from Spaceweather.com, SWPC.noaa.gov , and Kyoto (possibly others as well)

Kiruna Magnetometer:  http://www.irf.se/Observatory/?link=Magnetometers
It looks like we may be at the start of a substorm here in Kiurna. The HiT&MIS cameras are taking photos, but the clouds are coming in and out of view. Fingers crossed we saw something. Along with this possible substorm it looks like we have some ULF wave activity .

Finish Magnetometer Array: http://www.sgo.fi/Data/Pulsation/latestPulsation.php

Yesterday there was some strong ULF wave power, but no clear EMIC Waves. 

GOES Electron Flux:
GOES 2 MeV electrons appear to be returning to nominal values. However there is still a lot of structure associated with them.

GOES Proton Flux:
GOES proton fluxes are remaining nominal.

Solar wind speed: 

Vsw = 479.0 km/s

Solar proton density:

density = 4.9 protons/cm^3

Sun spot number:
95 - but there is one very big one (number 2396)

Flare activity:
Sunspot AR2396 is now in a beta-gamma configuration. For classification of sunspots see http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/magneticclasses.html and http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en/help/the-magnetic-classification-of-sunspots We currently have a 55% chance of an M-class flare. 

Kp:
kp =  2 with a 24 hour max of kp = 5

SW magnetic field:

Bz = 0.0 nT 

Btotal =  10.2 nT 

Coronal hole news
There are no large coronal holes currently on the Earthward facing side of the Sun. 

AE:

A slight increase in AE, perhaps a small substorm. 

Dst:

Dst is currently very quiet. 

Daily BARREL check in information: NO TELECON TODAY

Time: 7pm Kiruna time (13:00 Dartmouth time, 12:00 Minneapolis/Iowa time, 11:00 University of Colorado Boulder, 10:00 Berkley time). 

Phone number +1 641-715-3580

Access code 481960

Swedish Phrase of the day:

From Par - our safety guy at ESRANGE
Hopa Vindstilla - Hope for no wind! A very good hope we have for Monday morning. 

Hej då och bra kväll från Kiruna (Good bye and good evening from Kiruna), 

Alexa and the BARREL team.