BARREL Status Report #14 August 23, 2016

BARREL Status Report #14

August 23, 2016

We had two great flights with BARREL Flights 4C and 4D. Both payloads survived the night and caught the Van Allen Probe conjunction early in the morning. Payload 4C also caught a conjunction with MMS yesterday though it doesn’t look like any precipitation was observed during the conjunction. We did see relativistic precipitation on both payloads when they were about 100 km apart so this will provide us with some information about the spatial distribution at smaller scales than we obtained during our Antarctic campaigns. Both flights were terminated on August 22 due to their location.  Flight 4D was terminated at 1321 UT and Flight 4C was terminated at 1533 UT. The payloads landed about 12 km apart and both were recovered earlier today. We were very pleased to get some longer flights and are now well into turnaround. The next launch opportunity is tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1700 local time in Sweden. 

Robyn

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 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. 

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 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

BARREL Daily Update: Feb. 2nd 2014

Hi all, 

There was a planned power outage at UCSC where our soc is held. It was not suppose to affect our room, but did. We have a backup power system for these situations which gave us time, with some great quick work from our team, to move the payloads to the Dartmouth backup soc. The payloads are back up on the UCSC soc. It may take some time for the CDF files to be updates with the data that was housed at Dartmouth. 2L will be at the Dartmouth soc this morning and  moved back to UCSC this afternoon. 

Yesterday we also had the launch of payload 2F. It stayed down at the Halley Soc until it was transferred to UCSC. Halley launched 2Q today so we have another large array of balloons up. 2A, 2B, and 2L are all getting lower in altitude but are staying stable so far. 

There have been a few more flares, hopefully some more activity will follow. 

Ground Weather:
SANAE IV: 
Temp.: -11. C
Wind speed: 12 knots

Halley 6: Their computer is down. 
Temp.: ? C
Wind speed: ? knots 

Payloads up: 
SANAE IV: 2A, 2B, 2E, 2F
Halley 6:  2L, 2O, 2P, 2Q

Payloads coming down:

Collection times for EFW:  

2014-01-28

A: 19:30 - 23:59

2014:01-29

B: 17:20 - 22:30

2014-01-30

A: 13:40 - 20:40

2014-01-31

A: 16:40 - 23:40 

B: 12:30 - 19:30

2014-02-02

A: 13:30 - 20:20

2014-02-03

B: 12:45 - 19:45

2014-02-05

A:13:15 - 18:59

A: 19:10 - 20:30

Halley Bay Search Coil Magnetometer :

A nice EMIC eve last night at about 22:00 UT 

GOES Electron Flux:

The electron levels have stayed at moderate levels, but thee were some dropouts/structure. 

GOES Proton Flux:

The proton levels are at moderate levels but there were some dropouts from the start of the SI

Space Weather from Spaceweather.com and SWPC.noaa.gov 

Solar wind speed: 391.6 km/s 

Solar proton density: 1.1 cm^(-3)  

Sun spot number: 147

NOAA has the likelihood of a M class flare at 75% and a 15% chance of an X class flare.  

There are currently no large coronal holes observed on the Earthward side of the Sun. 

Kp is quiet 

kp =0 with a 24 max of kp = 3

Bz = 2.6 north

Btotal = 3.2 nT  

From Kyoto:

AE: some small activity

Dst: quiet.

BARREL Daily Update Jan 27th 2014

Hi all, 

Yesterday Halley launched 2O and SANAE launched 2D today. On another note, as we haven't been able to reconnect with 2C it is likely that it has self terminated or is terminating very shortly.

If you haven't checked out Aaron's e-mail, with this new increase, we've been able to get rid of almost all the backlog of burst data! So, if you had a time period that you were interested in, but perhaps figured wasn't as interesting as some other things in the cue... Speak up! We may be able to grab it before we overwrite. Also thanks to the EFW and EMFISIS teams in particular and the whole Van Allen team in general for getting this to work!

Sunspots 1944 and 1946 are still peaking their way around and appear to still be active! There was also a small CME which may give us a glancing blow on Jan 29th. The ENLIL models though only show a very very slight increase in density and nothing really in SW velocity. If we aren't in trouble with over writing important stuff, perhaps we should grab some burst data during this time, but I don't think it should be a high priority. There may be better stuff coming with the reappearance of these two sunspot regions, so something to keep in mind. Also If you remember there was a larger geo-effective coronal hole right after these sunspot regions. From the pictures of the backside of the sun, it looks like this will also make a reappearance. This coronal hole had SW velocities > 800 km/s, but northward Bz. Hopefully we'll be able to see some more amazing geomagnetic activity from both the sunspots and this coronal hole in a week or so's time.

Ground Weather:
SANAE IV: 
Temp.: -6. C
Wind speed: 12

Halley 6: 
Temp.: -5.8 C
Wind speed: 8 knots 

Payloads up: 
SANAE IV: 2A, 2B, 2C, 2D
Halley 6:  2L, 2O

Payloads coming down:
2C

Collection times for EFW:  
2013-01-06 (A just to West, B quite a ways to West)
A: 15:40-21:30   (6h 10m)
B: 17:30-19:30  (2h)

20:30-23:00 (2h 30m)

2013-01-07 (A quite west, B very west of stations)
A: 19:00-21:00  (2h)

22:30-23:59  (1h 30m)

B: 20:45-21:45  (1h)
00:45Jan8-02:00Jan8  (2h 15m)

2013-01-09  (A just to West, B quite a ways to West)

A: 15:15-21:15 (at 16k)  (6h)      

B: 17:30-20:30 (at 16k)  (3h)

     20:33-24:00 (at 4k)   (3.5hrs)

2013-01-10 (west of stations)

A: 18:00-01:00(jan11)

B: 20:00-03:00(jan11)

2013-01-11

B: 14:45-21:00

2013-01-12

A: 14:40-21:30

B: 17:00-24:00

2014-01-15

 A: 14:30-21:30

2014-01-22

A: 2014-01-22/17:15 - 23:59:59

2014-01-23

B: 2014-01-23/15:00 - 22:00

Halley Bay Search Coil Magnetometer :
EMIC waves last night.

GOES Electron Flux:
The electron levels have stayed at moderate levels.

GOES Proton Flux:
The proton levels are at moderate levels. 

Space Weather from Spaceweather.com and SWPC.noaa.gov 
Solar wind speed: 328.2 km/s 
Solar proton density: 1.8 cm^(-3)  

Sun spot number: 109
NOAA has the likelihood of a M class flare at 20% and a 1% chance of an X class flare.  

There are currently no coronal holes observed on the Earthward side of the Sun. 

Kp is quiet 
kp =0 with a 24 max of kp = 2

Bz = 0.7 south
Btotal = 5.2 nT  

From Kyoto:
AE: quiet

Dst: quiet

BARREL Daily Update Jan 21 2014

Hi all, 

2C was launched yesterday but we don't expect anymore launches today. 

The coronal hole seems to be starting to reach us! We've had a jump in the density and SW speeds are starting to increase. Hopefully we'll see much higher wind speeds in the next coming days. 

Ground Weather:

SANAE IV: 

Temp.: -7. C

Wind speed: 6 knot

Halley 6: 

Temp.: -2.3 C

Wind speed: 9 knots 

Payloads up: 

SANAE IV: 2X, 2A, 2B, 2C

Halley 6:  2L,

Payloads coming down:

 Some are getting lowish but no news yet of another one coming down. 

Collection times for EFW:  

2013-01-06 (A just to West, B quite a ways to West)

A: 15:40-21:30   (6h 10m)

B: 17:30-19:30  (2h)

20:30-23:00 (2h 30m)

2013-01-07 (A quite west, B very west of stations)

A: 19:00-21:00  (2h)

22:30-23:59  (1h 30m)

B: 20:45-21:45  (1h)

00:45Jan8-02:00Jan8  (2h 15m)

2013-01-09  (A just to West, B quite a ways to West)

A: 15:15-21:15 (at 16k)  (6h)      

B: 17:30-20:30 (at 16k)  (3h)

     20:33-24:00 (at 4k)   (3.5hrs)

2013-01-10 (west of stations)

A: 18:00-01:00(jan11)

B: 20:00-03:00(jan11)

2013-01-11

B: 14:45-21:00

2013-01-12

A: 14:40-21:30

B: 17:00-24:00

Halley Bay Search Coil Magnetometer :

A bright EMIC wave this morning. 

GOES Electron Flux:

The electron levels have stayed at moderate levels, although they have seen some structure throughout the last 24 hours. 

GOES Proton Flux:

The proton levels are at moderate levels. 

Space Weather from Spaceweather.com and SWPC.noaa.gov 

Solar wind speed: 328.9 km/s 

Solar proton density: 25.7 cm^(-3)  

Sun spot number: 131

NOAA has the likelihood of a M class flare at 30% and a 1% chance of an X class flare.  

There is a coronal hole coming which is expected to hit Earth on Jan 23rd -24th with winds increasing on Jan 21st. This colorant hole is positively polarized, so hopefully we'll see some more negative Bz (?). 

Kp is quiet 

kp =2 with a 24 max of kp = 3

Bz = 2.5 south

Btotal = 4.9 nT  

From Kyoto:

AE:  possible small (very small) substorm in progress

Dst: very quiet. 

BARREL Daily Update: Jan 20 2014

Hi all, 

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 

Payload 2Z was recovered today.We also hope to have a launch of payload 2C as long as the winds stay still at SANAE. 

The sun has stayed quiet, but will hopefully be waking up for this coronal hole. There are also a whole munch more sunspots starting to show up but only one it slowly growing in complexity. None have been sputtering much. 

Ground Weather:

SANAE IV: 

Temp.: -5. C

Wind speed: 1 knot

Halley 6: 

Temp.: -3.8 C

Wind speed: 12 knots 

Payloads up: 

SANAE IV: 2X, 2A, 2B (Payload 2C is moving to the flight line)

Halley 6:  2L,



Payloads coming down:

 2Y Some are getting lowish but no news yet of another one coming down. 

Collection times for EFW:  

2013-01-06 (A just to West, B quite a ways to West)

A: 15:40-21:30   (6h 10m)

B: 17:30-19:30  (2h)

20:30-23:00 (2h 30m)

2013-01-07 (A quite west, B very west of stations)

A: 19:00-21:00  (2h)

22:30-23:59  (1h 30m)

B: 20:45-21:45  (1h)

00:45Jan8-02:00Jan8  (2h 15m)

2013-01-09  (A just to West, B quite a ways to West)

A: 15:15-21:15 (at 16k)  (6h)      

B: 17:30-20:30 (at 16k)  (3h)

     20:33-24:00 (at 4k)   (3.5hrs)

2013-01-10 (west of stations)

A: 18:00-01:00(jan11)

B: 20:00-03:00(jan11)

2013-01-11

B: 14:45-21:00

2013-01-12

A: 14:40-21:30

B: 17:00-24:00

Halley Bay Search Coil Magnetometer :

none, very quiet

GOES Electron Flux:

The electron levels have stayed at moderate levels. 

GOES Proton Flux:

The proton levels are at moderate levels. 

Space Weather from Spaceweather.com and SWPC.noaa.gov 

Solar wind speed: 291.8 km/s 

Solar proton density: 3.6 cm^(-3)  

Sun spot number: 91

NOAA has the likelihood of a M class flare at 10% and a 1% chance of an X class flare.  

There is a coronal hole coming which is expected to hit Earth on Jan 22nd with winds increasing on Jan 21st. This colorant hole is positively polarized, so hopefully we'll see some more negative Bz (?). 

Kp is quiet 

kp =1 with a 24 max of kp = 1

Bz = 3.3 south

Btotal = 3.6 nT  

From Kyoto:

AE:  very quiet

Dst: very quiet. 

BARREL Daily Update Jan 18th 2014

Hi all, 

We had the launch of 2B and 2N within the last day! The space weather has been very quiet. but it looks like it should pick up next week. We have the coronal hole coming through and what appears to be a very active 1936 sunspot region! 

Ground Weather:

SANAE IV: 

Temp.: -6. C

Wind speed: 8 knots

Halley 6: 

Temp.: -4.6 C

Wind speed: 7 knots 

Payloads up: Possible launch today from either site

SANAE IV: 2X, 2Y, 2A, 2B

Halley 6:  2L, 2N

Payloads coming down:

 Some are getting lowish but no news yet of one coming down. 

Collection times for EFW:  

2013-01-03

A: 16:00-17:30 (MLTs 11.5-13) Pass to West of stations

A: 19:10-21:40 (MLTs 14-16.5)

B: 17:10-18:40 (MLTs 11.5-13)

B: 21:15-22:45 (MLTs 14.5-16)

2013-01-04 to 2013-01-05   Far to West pass

A: 18:50-20:20 (MLTs 11.3-12.8)

A: 22:50-00:20(jan5)   (MLTs 15-16)

B: 20:15-21:40 (MLTs 11.5-13)

2013-01-05      

A: 16:20-18:20 (MLTs 14.5-16.2)   pass b/t stations

B: 14:20-16:20 (MLTs 11.6-13.4)   pass b/t and West of stations

    18:00-20:00 (MLTs 14.3-16.3)

2013-01-06 (A just to West, B quite a ways to West)

A: 15:40-21:30   (6h 10m)

B: 17:30-19:30  (2h)

20:30-23:00 (2h 30m)

2013-01-07 (A quite west, B very west of stations)

A: 19:00-21:00  (2h)

22:30-23:59  (1h 30m)

B: 20:45-21:45  (1h)

00:45Jan8-02:00Jan8  (2h 15m)

2013-01-09  (A just to West, B quite a ways to West)

A: 15:15-21:15 (at 16k)  (6h)      

B: 17:30-20:30 (at 16k)  (3h)

     20:33-24:00 (at 4k)   (3.5hrs)

2013-01-10 (west of stations)

A: 18:00-01:00(jan11)

B: 20:00-03:00(jan11)

2013-01-11

B: 14:45-21:00

2013-01-12

A: 14:40-21:30

B: 17:00-24:00

Halley Bay Search Coil Magnetometer :

Not much to say, very quiet. possibly some very faint waves yesterday afternoon. 

GOES Electron Flux:

The electron levels have stayed at moderate levels. 

GOES Proton Flux:

The proton levels are at moderate levels. 

Space Weather from Spaceweather.com and SWPC.noaa.gov 

Solar wind speed: 305.4 km/s 

Solar proton density: 1.9 cm^(-3)  

Sun spot number: 95

NOAA has the likelihood of a M class flare at 30% and a 1% chance of an X class flare.  

There is a coronal hole coming which is expected to hit Earth on Jan 22nd. 

Kp is quiet 

kp =0 with a 24 max of kp = 2

Bz = 2.1 south

Btotal = 1.2 nT  

From Kyoto:

AE:  very quiet!

Dst: very very quiet.