NASA Super Pressure Balloon Begins Globetrotting Journey

NASA successfully launched a super pressure balloon from Wanaka Airport, New Zealand, on Tuesday, May 17, on a potentially record-breaking, around-the-world test flight!

The purpose of the flight is to test and validate the super pressure balloon technology with the goal of long-duration flight (100+ days) at mid-latitudes. In addition, the gondola is carrying the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) gamma-ray telescope as a mission of opportunity.

Two hours and 8 minutes after lift-off, the 532,000-cubic-meter (18.8-million-cubic-foot) balloon reached its operational float altitude of 33.5 kilometers (110,000 feet) flying a trajectory taking it initially westward through southern Australia before entering into the eastward flowing winter stratospheric cyclone. NASA estimates the balloon will circumnavigate the globe about the southern hemisphere’s mid-latitudes once every one to three weeks, depending on wind speeds in the stratosphere.

Credit: NASA/Bill Rodman

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Read more: go.nasa.gov/1rRvmv8