BARREL Status Report #12 August 17, 2016

BARREL Status Report #12

August 17, 2016

BARREL Flight 4B was terminated this morning at 0350 UT. The balloon started with a nice southerly trajectory, so we thought we might get a long flight out of it. But, it took a sharp turn to the west right after sunrise and had to be cut down as it approached the mountains. Despite the relatively short flight, we caught all of the RBSP conjunction we were targeting, and even had some substorm activity. We saw a very bright relativistic precipitation event which may have been associated with that substorm. The payload was recovered in very good shape earlier today. Note that this payload was also carrying the Univ. of Houston TEC experiment. We’re excited to see if they saw any change in total electron content due to the energetic precipitation! 

The Van Allen Probes EFW team is now requesting playback of burst data from our first flight and they are planning data collections for the next conjunctions. We will not be launching on Thursday due to the predicted flight trajectory (climb out is mostly west which shortens the flight substantially). So, the next launch attempt is likely to be on Friday. I’ll send another update then. 

Robyn

NASA's BARREL Mission in Sweden

A BARREL team member recovers the second payload after it landed. 

 

The BARREL team is at Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden, launching a series of six scientific payloads on miniature scientific balloons. The NASA-funded BARREL – which stands for Balloon Array for Radiation-belt Relativistic Electron Losses – primarily measures X-rays in Earth’s atmosphere near the North and South Poles. These X-rays are produced by electrons raining down into the atmosphere from two giant swaths of radiation that surround Earth, called the Van Allen belts. Learning about the radiation near Earth helps us to better protect our satellites. 

 

Several of the BARREL balloons also carry instruments built by undergraduate students to measure the total electron content of Earth’s ionosphere, as well as the low-frequency electromagnetic waves that help to scatter electrons into Earth’s atmosphere. Though about 90 feet in diameter, the BARREL balloons are much smaller than standard football stadium-sized scientific balloons.

 

This is the fourth campaign for the BARREL mission. BARREL is led by Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The undergraduate student instrument team is led by the University of Houston and funded by the Undergraduate Student Instrument Project out of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility. For more information on NASA’s scientific balloon program, visit: www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons. 

 

Image credit: NASA/Montana State University/Arlo Johnson

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

Web Only Edition...

For those of you die hard blog readers, here's something special and only for you.  We saw a moose today while working on HiT&MIS and a rainbow once it stopped raining.

From the ice: While the rest of us have freezing cold Weather...

The guys from the ice sent us a nice post card... It reminds me of growing up in WI. 

From Robyn, "Day after day, the sky has been white here lately. When the rest of your surroundings are also white, it can be a bit dull and dreary. Today, the sun came out finally, and we made the most of it! The clouds rolled in by the time we took the picture but it was quite lovely. With no wind, -7C doesn't feel too bad!"

To be fair, -7 C is 19 F. It's still pretty cold.

From the Ice: The Recovery of 2Z

Hi all, 

This morning (19 Jan) I went out and retrieved 2Z with a mountaineering expert, Roger.  The payload was 31km SW of SANAE base, and had been transmitting data as normal ever since it crash landed after it’s untimely return from 38km altitude.  We traveled to the payload via helicopter!  When we arrived at the payload, the chopper lightly touched down about 30meters from the payload.  We were concerned about crevasses, which due to the fresh snowfall in the past week, would have been nearly impossible to see.  I belayed Roger, seen in the photo, who recovered just the payload.  Portions of the balloon and parachute are visible to the right of the payload and buried in snow, but it was too dangerous to recover the parachute or balloon.  As the chopper took off again, Nick could see the GPS location of the payload rise, as he watched the ground station data back at base!  The mission went smoothly and we now have 2Z back in the lab.  The solar panels, even, show no signs of damage, even after a week of poor weather in Antarctica.  2Z is now ready to be tested, returned to the US for refurbishment, and eventually re-launched under another, hopefully more long-lived balloon.

Cheers,

Brett Anderson

Launch of 2M from Halley

Halley had another successful launch. 2M was launched at 11:12 UT and is now up on the SOC. The SANAE team also is hoping... well praying for a launch today.

From the ice: A note from Robyn and David Jan 5th

Hi folks,

  No launches today, but we were able to recover Payload 2J. Michael and Dave went out on skidoos with our mountaineer and brought the payload back in a sled. It's in quite good shape. The only obvious damage was that the mounting bracket for the Iridium antenna ripped off. Amazingly, the Iridium antenna planted itself upright in the snow and had the cable still attached so we could still communicate with it. We're trying to get a picture to you all, but the internet is very slow today.

At Halley, we are getting payload 1L ready, and the SANAE team was finishing up Payload 2Y. Both SANAE and Halley may have launch opportunities on Monday or Tuesday.

Robyn

From David

Today we launched the search and rescue operation for Payload 2J which had been sitting tantalisingly close to Halley since it was cut down 2 days ago. The Halley GA, Al Davies, who arrived back last night after a long spell of relief duty at the ship, gallantly agreed to take Mike McCarthy and myself off base to attempt the recovery. Travelling on 3 ski-doos roped together we drove off into the flat light of a snowy and overcast day, heading straight for the GPS location which the payload told us was about 5 miles South West of base.

Within half an hour of hour of setting out we spotted a small black speck in the white expanse which we recognised as the payload box as we drew closer. The magnetometer readings had indicated that the payload had come to rest upside down, this was quickly confirmed as we saw that the box was inverted with the magnetometer boom still firmly attached. The only apparent damage was to the Iridium antenna mounting which had been torn off its posts leaving the antenna dangling by its cable but still pointing at the sky in a gesture of defiance! The flight train and parachute were stretched out on the ground but there was no sign of the balloon itself. However, Al soon found the white rip panel cord and followed it just a few yards to the nearest part of the balloon which was all but invisible in the whiteness as the clear plastic film was covered in a thin layer of snow. A number of large holes were found in the balloon but it was impossible to determine which, if any, were the cause of the failure and which were due to damage inflicted upon landing. We had to inflict even more damage to persuade the billowing envelope into the small box sled we had brought along to pick up the remains. The fun continued as we joined Robyn back at base and had to resort to cutting the balloon into pieces to get it stuffed into a couple of empty payload boxes in addition to the original cardboard box which the balloon was packed in, and even then it didn't go quietly!

That's probably the end of payload 2J's Antarctic adventure for now but it may well end up back on a flight line in the Northern Hemisphere before too long - watch this space!

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Cheers,

Dave

From the ice: A note from Robyn Dec. 27th

Today we had our first launch from Halley. Payload 2T was launched at 1208 UT. The payload reached float altitude (~38 km) at 1410 UT. So far the balloon looks healthy and the payload is working nominally. A small photo is attached.

As a reminder, you can view the data live at http://soc2.ucsc.edu. The default view is our "live data" screen which may not be your favorite way to view data. But, you can click on the buttons near the top to view a map, or make plots. Quicklook plots of the x-ray count rate will also be posted once per day.  Other plots of mostly housekeeping data can be viewed at: http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/mccarthy/BARREL/2T

We don't plan to launch another payload tomorrow. The SANAE team expects to have a payload ready Sunday and the Halley team has a possible launch opportunity Sunday. I'll provide a weather update in tomorrow's status.

Robyn

Payload 2T on its way to float altitude

Happy Holidays