BARREL Status Report #14 August 23, 2016

BARREL Status Report #14

August 23, 2016

We had two great flights with BARREL Flights 4C and 4D. Both payloads survived the night and caught the Van Allen Probe conjunction early in the morning. Payload 4C also caught a conjunction with MMS yesterday though it doesn’t look like any precipitation was observed during the conjunction. We did see relativistic precipitation on both payloads when they were about 100 km apart so this will provide us with some information about the spatial distribution at smaller scales than we obtained during our Antarctic campaigns. Both flights were terminated on August 22 due to their location.  Flight 4D was terminated at 1321 UT and Flight 4C was terminated at 1533 UT. The payloads landed about 12 km apart and both were recovered earlier today. We were very pleased to get some longer flights and are now well into turnaround. The next launch opportunity is tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1700 local time in Sweden. 

Robyn

BARREL Status Report #11 August 16, 2016

BARREL Status Report #11

August 16, 2016

BARREL flight 4B (payload 2J) was launched about 30 minutes ago at 2002 UT, right on schedule. The balloon is now at float altitude, ~36 km. The upper level winds are still holding out at a higher than desired speed, so this may be another short flight. But we still have a good chance to catch most of the conjunction with Van Allen Probes. A picture of inflation, courtesy of Gar Bering from the University of Houston, is attached.

The ABOVE2 experiment led by Chris Cully from University of Calgary is also planning to attempt a launch from Saskatoon today. If they do launch, they will be in conjunction with Van Allen for the orbit following the BARREL conjunction so this could be very interesting. Fingers crossed!  

Best, 

Robyn 

BARREL Status Report #9 August 13, 2016 - First launch

BARREL Status Report #9

August 13, 2016

BARREL Flight 4A was launched from Esrange at 2224 UT on August 13. The payload is currently at about 5 km altitude and will take another ~1.5 hours to reach a float altitude of ~36 km. The flight is predicted to be somewhat short due to the upper level winds so the team held off in order to target the conjunction with Van Allen Probes. The next launch is likely to be Tuesday in order to target another conjunction. 

Robyn

See our twitter feed for some photos from the team on the ground of the launch. 

Here's one from Greg Bowers, a BARREL Grad student from University of California Santa Crux. 

New status update from the PI

BARREL Status Report #12

August 22, 2015

Payload 3E was launched on Friday, August 21 at 0705 UT. The balloon survived the night and is currently back up at 36 km altitude. It's currently drifting slowly towards the border with Finland so will likely be terminated later today. 

We have one more launch planned for the campaign. Right now, it looks like Tuesday will be the next opportunity. 

Cheers

Robyn

Video of a launch

... Well part of a launch.

We finally got some good video's of a launch! Thanks to Greg's go pro you can see some of the inflation and the release  of the payload 3C launch. We're working on getting the video up for the balloon floating away as well.


Stay tuned.

Status update from the PI

BARREL Status Report #11

August 19, 2015

Payload 3C was terminated on August 18 at 0333 UT. As expected, the balloon started to drop in altitude after sunset. As the sun rose a few hours later, it began to heat the balloon. We hoped the balloon would rise again as happened during our late-season Antarctic flights. It was a real nail-biter, but alas, the balloon was low enough that the cooling due to the surrounding air won the battle over solar heating; it continued to sink and had to be cut down. Thanks to the Esrange ops team for giving it a fair chance to pull through!  It was a bit heartbreaking to see the balloon come down but I will say that it was a fantastic flight and our longest yet. The payload came down very close to Kiruna about 2 km from a road, so was recovered in excellent condition today. 

Payload 3D was launched this morning, August 19 at 6:02 UT. Unfortunately, the balloon was drifting too far north and close to a large town in Norway. So, it was terminated at 12:50 UT. Despite the short flight, very intense precipitation was detected for several hours.  

The next launch attempt is planned for Friday morning.

Cheers,

Robyn

Update from the PI

BARREL Status Report #9

August 13, 2015

The second BARREL payload (3B) was launched today at 04:30 UT. Shortly after the balloon reached float altitude, geomagnetic activity increased (Kp=4) and we began to detect precipitation. Later in the day, we also captured another excellent conjunction with the Van Allen Probes. We're excited to look at the data more closely after the CDF files are processed!

The payload is currently on its way down. It was terminated at 17:18 UT because it was starting to drift towards the mountains. This payload carried one of Univ. of Houston's student piggyback experiments. Their data are all recorded on board so we are anxious to recover this payload!

We are targeting the next Van Allen conjunction on August 16 for our next launch. As always, launch will depend on surface conditions. But, the upper level winds are slowing down and should be favorable for even longer flights. 

Cheers,

Robyn

Status update from the PI

BARREL Status Report #7

August 10, 2015

Well, it's been a busy and successful day for the BARREL team! After a successful flight compatibility test and launch dress rehearsal this morning, we held a Flight Readiness Review with Esrange and everything was GO for launch.

Payload 3A was launched at 1550 local time (1350 UT). We expected a short flight because of the upper level winds, but were able to capture a near-perfect conjunction with the two Van Allen Probe spacecraft. The payload was headed towards some large lakes and mountains, so was terminated at 23:18 local time (21:18 UT). Recovery looks promising. 

Attached is a picture from shortly after the launch that Alexa posted on our blog.  

The next launch opportunity will not be until at least Wednesday.

All for now!

-Robyn

3A launched!

We launched our first payload, and I'm sure Kathryn will have many more great photos to share, but I wanted to let you all know. 3A is up at float altitude and doing well. We were originally thinking that we may only be able to get a 4 hour flight if we were lucky. However, it's just sitting there and we seem to be getting some fantastic data!

Hopefully it will still be up when we wake up tomorrow morning!

Have a good night!

Alexa

Weekend Flight Preparations

The BARREL team had an action-packed weekend of launch preparations and payload testing.

We set out four payloads over the course of beautiful Saturday and had them complete their comprehensive tests.

Greg sets out a Pelican case to support a fourth payload outside.

The payload we intend to fly on Monday (today!) is 2S, now renamed 3A as the first payload on the third campaign. 2S is special in that it carries its magnetometer on a long boom. All payloads in previous campaigns had this attachment, but this campaign is primarily keeping the magnetometers sealed within the payload box itself. Its backup payload is 2H, which has no such boom.

Sunday saw worse weather, but we successfully completed flight preparations by weighing the payloads/flight trains for 2S, 2H, and 1Z, an alternative back up.

Following tests on Sunday, we went out into Jukkasjärvi, the small town that houses Esrange.

A beautiful lake in Jukkasjärvi.

 

We drove through sunset on our way home — this time at 9:57 pm! We've been gaining eight minutes of darkness each day.

As of Monday morning, we have passed Esrange's Flight Compatibility Test and had our required NASA Flight Readiness Review. Monday afternoon we are go for launch of payload 2S/3A! Stay tuned for the post-launch update, including photos from the FCT and pre-launch preparations.

Kathryn

BARREL Status from the PI

BARREL Status Report #4

August 6, 2015

It's been rainy all day today which delayed our launch dress rehearsal until Friday. However, we were able to do an indoor walk through of procedures with SSC/Esrange personnel. We also got two more payloads (1Z and 1H) tested,  buttoned up, ready for final CPT.  

Gar Bering from UH arrived today with his students and began checking out their VLF instrument which will be integrated with Payload 2U in a few days. 

The BARREL FRR/ATP was also held today with NASA. A few safety-related procedural items with hazops were identified, having to do with slight differences in how NASA and SSC conduct operations. After working with SSC and NASA safety, we have identified solutions and expect those action items to be closed out Friday afternoon. 

If the launch dress rehearsal goes smoothly on Friday, and NASA safety is satisfied, we will go through our final FRR with Esrange. Our  first launch opportunity could be Sunday (rain is predicted again for Saturday). Esrange will be providing updated predicted launch trajectories to us on Friday so tomorrow's update will be more definitive about our first launch attempt.

Robyn

From the Ice: BARREL Status Update #40

Payload 2Q was launched from Halley at 1432 UT today. We currently have 8 payloads up. We don't expect any launches from either station tomorrow.

Robyn. 

From the Ice: BARREL Status Update #37

It was a beautiful and successful day today! Payload 2P was launched by the Halley team at 1125 UT. Payload 2E was then launched by the SANAE team at 1600 UT. Both are looking good so far. Payload 2L has also come back to lower latitudes and is still kicking after 24 days. The winds are supposed to pick up at Halley tomorrow so we don't expect a launch from here until early next week.

Robyn

From the Ice: What working in Antarctica is really like...

Day after day, the sky has been white here lately. When the rest of your surroundings are also white, it can be a bit dull and dreary. Today, the sun came out finally, and we made the most of it! The clouds rolled in by the time we took the picture but it was quite lovely. With no wind, -7C doesn't feel too bad!

Robyn

On another note, both Halley and SANAE launched balloons today! This makes 16 launches, not bad. 

From the Ice: BARREL Status Update #35

The SANAE team launched Payload 2D at 1552 UT today. We now have 5 payloads up. Today was a beautiful day at Halley also - the first sun we've seen in a while! Because we just launched yesterday, we decided to wait another day before launching again. This will also give the crew here time to groom our launch pad. We got quite a lot of snow over the last week so setting up for launch yesterday was a little challenging. The snow was nearly up to my knees in places and quite dense. Our "runners" did a great job launching the payload given the conditions.  We expect good conditions again Tuesday and Wednesday so expect to launch on one of those days. Meanwhile, we completed the Payload 2P Comprehensive Performance Test, and it is now flight-ready. We also got Payload 2Q out of storage an onto the bench for testing. 

Robyn

From the Ice: BARREL Status Update #34

Hi all,
  This is a status report for Sunday. Our internet was down most of the day so I'm writing it Monday morning! We finally had some decent weather at Halley and launched Payload 2O at 1740 UT.  SANAE has a possible launch opportunity today. Geomagnetic activity has picked up a tad and we expect that to continue through today and tomorrow. 

Robyn

From the Ice: BARREL Status Update #29

Hi all,

Payload 2N was launched at 1248 UT. It reached float altitude but was apparently a leaker and had to be terminated at 0220 UT. The payload landed at  76S 32.68W. Thanks to the folks in CA for keeping an eye on it while we were sleeping! SANAE  had a scheduled power outage on station for some work on the generators  so thanks also to UCSC for taking over the payload monitoring early. Halley had an unscheduled power outage later in the day when one of the generators imploded. Luckily there are four generators on station, so we were not without power for long. No launch planned from Halley Sunday.  SANAE has a possible launch opportunity.

Robyn

From the ice: BARREL Status update #27

Hi all, a quick status update today,

SANAE launched Payload 2A today at 1327 UT. It reached float altitude about 2 hours later and so far is looking good.  They may have another opportunity tomorrow. It's been too windy at Halley for a launch but we're expecting Saturday to be better.  

Robyn

From the Ice: BARREL Status update #23

The SANAE team launched Payload 2Z at 1517UT today. Unfortunately, the balloon failed right after reaching float altitude. The ascent rate was normal up until that point, so we are a bit baffled. The good news is that the payload is about 30 km from SANAE, and there is a good chance the SANAE team will be able to recover it by helicopter tomorrow. The next launch opportunity at Halley is likely to be Wednesday. SANAE also expects bad surface conditions for the next couple of days.

Robyn

From the Ice: BARREL Status report #22

Hi all

It's been a busy and successful day for us in Antarctica!  The Halley team launched Payload 2M at 1112 UT. The SANAE team launched Payload 2Y at 1932 UT.  Payload 2W was successfully terminated at ~1227 UT. It landed about 240 miles southwest of Dumont D'Urville station, at 68.89S  133.8E. There are currently 7 payloads in the air. Payload 2T has is nearly back at Halley. By tomorrow, I expect it will have circumnavigated the pole!  We don't expect a launch from Halley tomorrow (Sunday) but SANAE is a possibility.

Robyn