AESOP Cruising Along At 136,000 Feet

No, it's not a UFO... but our readers in Greenland and Canada may be forgiven if they happen to mistake the 300-meter-long AESOP balloon now floating towards them for a vessel from another planet. The mammoth scientific balloon was launched from Sweden's Esrange Space Center at 0208 Zulu Friday, for an expected 4-6 day trek north.

Crews at Esrange report the balloon resembled a gigantic gold bubble in the midnight sun (we're talking Arctic Circle, remember) as it rose into the sky. At last report, the AESOP balloon was floating at just over 136,000 feet, and had expanded in size to 1.2 million cubic meters in size.

The purpose of the long duration flight is to study positron abundance in cosmic ray electrons to determine the extent to which the large scale structure of the heliospheric magnetic field is important in the transmission of galactic cosmic rays through the galaxy.

The launch was performed by the American balloon launch team from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Palestine, TX, with support by the SSC launch team at Esrange.

"We are very pleased with the flight so far. The launch was perfect, the balloon is at float altitude, and the science instrument is performing flawlessly", said David Pierce, NASA Balloon Programs Office Chief.

"The operation would not have been possible without the outstanding people and facilities at Esrange," said Danny Ball, CSBF Site Manager. "It is always a pleasure for us to come here. It is our favorite launch site. Esrange and CSBF personnel work very well together in doing world class science on balloons."

The next flight on CBSF's roster will be the engineering test flight of a new balloon type now under development called ULDB (Ultra-Long Duration Balloon vehicle). The hang test will be done Saturday, and the launch will take place when the weather conditions are right once again.

The third flight of this balloon campaign will take place around June 21, when the TRACER instrument -- a cosmic ray astronomy experiment from the University of Chicago -- will begin it's trip from Sweden to Canada in near space.

FMI: www.nsbf.nasa.gov, www.ssc.se