Balloon Flights

FLIGHTS

Ultra Long Duration Balloon Flights

Conventional Balloon Flights:
Conventional flights last anywhere from 6 to 40 hours. The balloons fly as high as 140,000 feet. The balloons are tracked from an antenna located on the ground near the launch site. Because the antenna requires a direct line of sight to the balloon, the flights can only be tracked within a 350 mile radius of the launch site. Outside this radius, all contact would be lost.

Figure 1.

The antennas, used to track the balloon flights, are placed on top of the High Bay building, the tallest building on the base. As a result it has the longest line of site on the base.

Figure 2.

On the left you can see the old navigational charts, used for decades to monitor the trajectory of the balloon flights. On the right is the current computer upgrade.

Long Duration Balloon Flights:
LDB balloon flights last up to 3 weeks. They are flown out of locations in Fairbanks, Alaska and Antarctica. The data sent back from these flights are relayed to the ground by using over-the-horizon satellites such as TDRSS .

Figure 3.

This Figure shows the combined trajectories of all the long duration balloon flights made from the balloon base in McMurdo Station, Antarctica from 1991-1996.

When a balloon launched from Alaska reaches the stratosphere, the winds take the balloon from East to West. The balloon circumnavigates the globe, crossing Russia, Northern Europe and then Greenland. In Antarctica the balloons are launched from McMurdo station and also travel from East to West.

The balloons are monitored both for telemetry and science data during the entire flight. The data are typically recorded to tape or disk on board . When the mission is complete, the payload is released from the balloon and parachutes to the ground where it can be retrieved.

Balloons that have been in flight for three weeks have been brought down as close as 17 miles from the launch site. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 4.

A balloon launch just getting underway in Antarctica.

Figure 5.

This is the TopHat payload being prepared for flight.

Ultra Long Duration Balloon Flights:
ULDB is a new program. The intent is to fly super-pressure balloons so that the pressure on the inside of the balloon is greater than that outside. This allows the balloon to fly both at a higher altitude and for a longer period of time. These balloons are made out of special materials and are intended to stay aloft for periods of up to 100 days. A scientific flight demonstration for this program is planned for the winter of the year 2000. The payloads that are designed to be handled by these flights are more elaborate than typical balloon payloads and more similar to satellite payloads.

The National Scientific Balloon Facility (NSBF) has launched six ELBBO super pressure balloons including the longest balloon flight in history, (lasting over 4 months) which was flown for Professor Bob Holzworth of the University of Washington.

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