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:
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...
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
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.
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.
Kiruna Magnetometer: http://www.irf.
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/
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)
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.
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.
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