NASA’s Science Balloon Program successfully launched a football stadium-sized Super High Pressure Balloon (SPB) from New Zealand’s Wanaka Airport at 11:42 PM (April 15th 7:42 PM EST) on Sunday, April 16. time) on a task scheduled for 100 or more days.

“Mother Nature shone beautifully today and created the perfect conditions for a fantastic launch,” said Debbie Fairbrother, NASA’s balloon science program manager. “I’m excited about this mission and the latest science it will provide.”

The balloon will float at an altitude of 110,000 feet (33.5 km) and will be carried by winds around the mid-latitude band of the Southern Hemisphere.

Fairbrother said NASA is inviting the public to pursue these missions as they travel through the mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. The flight path of the balloon is controlled by the speed and direction of the wind at flight altitude. The missions will spend most of their time on the water, and for any land crossings, NASA is working with the US State Department to coordinate the country’s flight permits. Real-time tracking of these flights is available to everyone here. In addition, NASA publishes balloon launch and tracking information online at www.nasa.gov/balloons and on NASA’s social media platforms.

While testing pressurized balloon technology is the primary purpose of the flight, the balloon also carries Princeton University’s Super High Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT), which uses a wide field of view to view large galaxy clusters from the balloon platform near the space environment. By measuring how these large objects, also called “weak gravitational lensing,” warp the space around them, SuperBIT will be able to map the dark matter found in these clusters.

A second SPB flight is planned to fly Extreme Universe Space Observatory 2 (EUSO-2), a University of Chicago mission aimed at improving the data collected during the 2017 mission. EUSO-2 will detect ultra-high-energy cosmic ray particles from beyond our galaxy as they enter Earth’s atmosphere. The source of these particles is unknown, so data collected from EUSO-2 will help solve this scientific mystery.

Maintaining a constant height above sea level in the stratosphere is a serious challenge for airborne systems, including balloons. Most standard zero-pressure heavy balloons can range up to 45,000 feet (13.7 km) altitude due to the varying heating and cooling of the day-night cycle. In response, mission operators typically release excess weight in the form of ballast to maintain altitude. In contrast, the SPB is designed to maintain a positive internal pressure and shape regardless of the environment, keeping the balloon at a constant floating altitude without lowering the ballast.

The 18.8 million cubic feet (532,000 cubic meters) balloon is filled with helium and is approximately the size of a football stadium when fully inflated at an operating height of 110,000 feet (33.5 kilometers). Wānaka is NASA’s special launch pad for long-duration mid-latitude balloon missions.

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia manages the agency’s balloon science program, with 10 to 15 flights each year from launch sites around the world. Peraton, which operates NASA’s Balloon Science Facility (CSBF) in Texas, provides mission planning, engineering services and field operations for NASA’s science program. Operating for over 40 years, the CSBF team has launched more than 1,700 scientific balloons. NASA balloons are manufactured by Aerostar. NASA’s Science Bubble Program is funded by the Astrophysics Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.