Science Leaders meet NASA scientists

On Friday afternoon, 27 Year 5 and 6 Science Leaders visited Wanaka Airport to find out more about NASA's balloon launch operation. The communications manager, Jeremy Eggers, introduced us to Gabe, a NASA science engineer who gave us a detailed presentation about the history of ballooning, the development of stratospheric balloons, weather balloons and how the NASA balloon program has developed.

 We learnt that Wanaka has been selected as the best location for the current program which aims to find out more about deep space astro physics. This involves the study of the sun, stars and light particles that cannot be seen from the ground. Wanaka is the only current launch location that enables the balloon to fly around the whole world and the goal for this year's mission is to achieve 100 days of flight.

We got to feel some of the material from which the balloon is made and learnt about how the balloon is deployed (brought down again) once it has completed its mission.

Chris, a NASA meteorologist explained how weather conditions on the ground and up in the stratosphere were carefully monitored to ensure the best launch conditions. Once launched the balloon travels up to 30-33km above earth, which is one third of the distance before space (out of the atmosphere) is reached.

Gabe showed us the crane which is in place ready for the launch day, and the huge tankers filled with helium.

 Jim Adams, one of NASA's lead scientists showed us the payload which will be attached to the balloon. In his words it is "just a camera"! However, this camera takes 400, 000 pictures in a second. The aim is for it to take photos of and film streaks of light or protons (light particles) that can give us new information about space. It will help scientists to answer questions about how the universe, stars and planets formed and evolved.

 Debbie Fairbrother, the chief of the Balloon Office Program, showed us the balloon itself which was wrapped up carefully to protect it until launch day.

Here are a few links related to the mission:
Link to balloon tracker (once it launches): https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/newzealand/wanaka.htm

More on NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program: www.nasa.gov/scientificballoons

The Blog on the super pressure balloon that is launched from Wanaka: https://blogs.nasa.gov/superpressureballoon

Full video of last year’s launch: MP4 Web Version

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pwa79jpr0xkyl0w/NZ%20SPB%202016_FULL%20SEQUENCE_ProRes%20FIXED.mp4?dl=0

Video of Principal Investigator Angela Olinto talking about the Extreme Universe Space Observatory mission:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNZhhbv_QMQ&t=6s