Research Objectives:
Free-flying balloons offer many advantages over satellites as a means of high-altitude exploration: They remain at a specific location much longer and cost a fraction to launch. NASA's National Scientific Balloon Faciltity (NSBF), based in Palestine Texas, operates the Long Duration Balloon (LDB) program near Williams Field at McMurdo Station. NSBF staff work with researchers, launching, tracking, and recovering high-altitude balloons carrying scientific payloads into the stratosphere.
The NSBF will launch two stratospheric balloons, each with a volume of 28.42 million cubic feet and capable of ascending at a rate of approximately 900 feet per minute to a float altitude of 125,000 feet.
Both launches will take place at the LDB site near Williams Field, reach float altitude, circumnavigate the continent between 77 degrees south latitude and 80 degrees south longitude. They will be terminated and recovered on the Ross Ice Shelf or on the Polar Plateau. The launch window is mid-December to mid-January.
To terminate the flight an aircraft flies within line-of-sight of the balloon and sends a command to the payload from an onboard communication system. At the point of release, the payload will descend with a parachute to a predicted impact zone. Recovery operations then follow.
