NASA’s second super pressure balloon develops leak, forcing termination of mission

After only a day and a half after launch NASA’s second super pressure balloon, this time carrying a detector for studying cosmic rays, developed a leak that forced its controllers to terminate the mission.

The scientific balloon launched from Wānaka Airport, New Zealand, May 13, 12:02 p.m. NZST (May 12, 8:02 p.m EDT). The balloon was in flight for 1 day, 12 hours, and 53 minutes before termination over the Pacific Ocean May 14 at 12:54 UTC (8:54 a.m. EDT). The launch was the second and final for NASA’s 2023 New Zealand balloon launch campaign.

During flight, the SPB began experiencing a leak and teams attempted to troubleshot by dropping ballast to maintain the balloon’s altitude. The determination was made to safely terminate over the Pacific Ocean. NASA will investigate the cause of the anomaly.

Meanwhile, the first balloon, dubbed SuperBIT, continues to fly, presently on its fourth circumnavigation of Antarctic while its telescope takes high resolution images of celestial objects.

Experimental NASA high altitude balloon circles Antarctica in ten days

Overview map
Click for original image.

An experimental NASA high altitude balloon has successfully circled the continent of Antarctica in only ten days, flying at an average elevation of 107,000 feet.

The overview map to the right, annotated for posting here, shows its flight path so far.

“The balloon is performing exactly the way it was engineered to do, maintaining its shape and flying at a stable altitude despite the heating and cooling of the day-night cycle,” said Debbie Fairbrother, NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program chief. “As we continue to test, validate, and qualify this technology for future flights we’re also performing some cutting-edge science.”

The balloon is flying the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) payload, which has already returned brilliant research images from this flight.

Weather permitting, the balloon can be seen from the ground, especially at sunrise and sunset, as it continues on its globetrotting journey. People can track the real-time location of NASA’s super pressure balloon at this website: https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/map/balloon10/flight728NT.htm

The images have so far been of astronomical objects, such as the Antennae galaxy and the Tarantula nebula. Being so high above the atmosphere, the pictures are sharper than ground-based telescopes and have a much wider field of view.

The press release did not state how long this flight will last, but it did mention a second balloon mission is planned, flying a European cosmic-ray detector.