The balloon-borne instrument AESOP was successfully launched today from SSC's launch facility at Esrange Space Center. The 1 200 000 m3 balloon will fly at an altitude of 40 km and land in Canada in 4-6 days.
This balloon campaign is a continuation of a NASA long-duration balloon flight programme at northern latitudes that started in the summer of 2005. By conducting balloon flights from the Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden to North America, flights of up to 6 days can be obtained, an opportunity that is highly required by scientists within the field of astronomy.
The primary goal of the AESOP instrument is to investigate the charge-sign dependence of solar modulation. It will measure propagation of oppositely charged cosmic ray particles from Local Interstellar Space to Earth to determine the role of magnetic fields in their propagation through the solar wind. AESOP has flown earlier from Esrange Space Center and Canada. Read aboout the fight from Esrange in 2006.
The Colombia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) has the overall operational responsibility for the campaign activities and they will be supported by a particular project manager and a launch team from the Swedish Space Corporation.
Press images here.
Read about the AESOP science here.
The next balloon, SUNRISE, is flight ready and is planned to be launched on Sunday 6th June at the earliest. Media is invited to follow the launch from Esrange Space Center. Read the invitation here.
For further information contact
Tomas Hedqvist, project manager at Esrange Space Center, SSC
tomas.hedqvist@ssc.se
+46 70 517 20 16