NASA successfully launches Super Pressure Balloon

“Following our 2015 and 2016 New Zealand missions, we have learned key lessons on the balloon design that have gone into perfecting the technology for this year’s flight,” said Debbie Fairbrother, NASA’s Balloon Programme Office chief.

“I am very proud of the team that delivered us to this point and I am hopeful that third time is the charm for realising 100 days of flight,” he added.

While validating the super pressure balloon technology is the main flight objective, the International Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super Pressure Balloon (EUSO-SPB) payload is flying as a mission of opportunity.

EUSO-SPB’s objective is to detect ultra-high energy cosmic rays from beyond our galaxy as they penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere.As these high-energy particles enter the atmosphere, they interact with nitrogen molecules in the air and create a UV fluorescence light.EUSO-SPB will observe a broad swathe of the Earth’s atmosphere to detect the UV fluorescence from these deep space cosmic rays coming in from above.

“EUSO-SPB is now searching for the most energetic cosmic particles ever observed,” said Angela V Olinto, Professor at the University of Chicago.

“The origin of these particles is a great mystery that our pioneering mission will help to solve. Do they come from massive black holes at the centre of galaxies? Tiny, fast- spinning pulsars? Or somewhere else?” Olinto asked.

“The international science team is very excited to see our cosmic ray fluorescence detector lifted to suborbital space by this remarkable balloon and departing on this global journey,” said Lawrence Wiencke, Professor at the Colorado School of Mines in the US.

“This balloon will give us a great view, and we are hoping for a record flight,” Wiencke added.