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