Solar Balloon Successfully Reaches Upper Atmosphere

The National Science Foundation has announced that a solar telescope reached 120,000 feet into atmosphere with the help of a jumbo jet-sized balloon. This test flight was the first step and a promising one for the Sunrise Project, which will launch a similar balloon with the same equipment over the Arctic in the summer of 2009.

The project is run by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and backed by a cast of international collaborators such as the Germany-based Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics. The Swedish Space Corporation and Spain's Astrophysics Institute of the Canary Islands are also partners in the project, as well as the other American partners, NASA, Lockheed Martin and the University of Chicago. NASA and the NSF are funding Sunrise.

The successful launch of the balloon and the safe return of the specially designed gondola raises the hopes for the researchers involved in Sunrise. Cliff Jacobs of the NSF said in the press release, "This successful balloon flight is an amazing engineering feat; it will pave the way for a more complete understanding of the solar magnetic field." The NCAR engineer, David Elmore, in charge of the test flight made a similar statement, "We can now move on to planning the first full-scale mission with confidence."

The Sunrise Project's aim is to study the sun's magnetic fields, and how the ever-fluctuating fields can affect the Earth. Solar activity, sometimes known as "storms," have been shown to affect power and telecommunications systems on Earth. The Project will also study how solar activity and radiation affect the Earth's climate.

The first mission of Sunrise will be in the summer of 2009, when the balloon will launch from Sweden for a multi-day flight that could run as long as two-weeks if everything goes well. The purpose of the flight is to use the 24-hour daylight of the Arctic summer to capture a longer data-set of pictures without having nightfall get in the way. The altitude of the balloon is necessary to avoid atmospheric turbulence caused by weather patterns. Also, in that high of an altitude, the telescope that will used will be able to view the sun in the ultraviolet range, which is impossible from the Earth's surface.

More than the balloon, the real challenge of the Sunrise mission is the gondola that the balloon carries. The gondola had to be engineered to withstand extreme temperature changes, as well as a brutal descent to the Earth after the mission is complete. The gondola will carry a 39-inch telescope, computers, disk drives and other observational instruments. In addition to withstanding the landing, the gondola must not vibrate or it could upset the focus of the telescope.

The gondola also makes it possible to reuse the equipment for later missions, possibly over the Antarctic. Using a balloon and a reusable gondola is a relatively cheap way to collect data that might otherwise have to be gathered from space. Sunrise's principal researcher, Michael Knolker, commented in the press release, "This is a very economical way of rising above the atmosphere and capturing images that cannot be captured from Earth. What we are doing is laying the groundwork for the next generation of space flights."

Source: National Science Foundation