SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Jan. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Raven Industries, Inc.
In its annual scientific campaign to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, the NASA Balloon Program has established a new record by simultaneously flying three scientific payloads in the stratosphere around the Antarctic continent. As of Tuesday morning, January 15th, the three balloons have provided over 1,700 hours of combined scientific observation time for the 13,000 pounds of scientific equipment. All three of the balloons were designed and manufactured at the Aerospace Products facility of Aerostar International, Inc. in Sulphur Springs, Texas.
The annual balloon launching campaign is managed and operated by NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas. "The operations support for three balloons in the air at one time, and using the finest balloon vehicle made for this kind of cutting-edge scientific research is a major achievement," said Dr. Vernon Jones, senior scientist for suborbital research at NASA headquarters.
All of these observations are not possible with ground based instruments. The only way to make them is to carry the instruments above the obscuring layers of the Earth's atmosphere. The NASA Balloon Program uses Aerostar balloons to provide scientists with platforms at near space altitudes at a fraction of the cost of orbital missions. "To date, we have accumulated 60 days of total flight time with more to come. The performance of the Aerostar balloons has been outstanding," said Danny Ball, Site Manager of the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility. "The scientists are elated with the altitude profiles on all three. It's clear that Aerostar's commitment to quality is paying dividends to the science community. These balloons are absolutely perfect."
Aerostar's support for high altitude balloon research dates back to the 1950s. "We take a tremendous amount of pride in the work we do here. It's not easy to fabricate a balloon with thirty plus acres of film that can fly for a month with no leaks," said Mike Smith, Senior Aerospace Engineer at Aerostar. "The reliability of our balloons speaks for itself," said Mike Zimmerman, Production Manager, "from engineering through production, we acknowledge that we are taking part in making important contributions to science."
The giant helium balloons have a volume of forty million cubic feet, four hundred times that of a typical hot air balloon, or roughly the size of the Houston Astrodome. They are capable of carrying a six thousand pound payload to 130,000 feet (24.6 miles) above sea level. At that altitude, the balloons are above 99.5% of the atmosphere and the scientific instruments have an unobstructed view of space.
The payloads taking advantage of this technology were launched Dec. 19 - 26 from McMurdo and have varied objectives. The first is the University of Maryland's Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) experiment, the second is the Balloon borne Experiment with a Superconducting Spectrometer (BESS) developed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. and the third is Japan's High Energy Accelerator Center, Tsukuba, Japan, and Louisiana State University's Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC). ATIC and CREAM are making precise measurements of high energy cosmic rays and BESS is searching for the presence of small amounts of antimatter in space. All three will provide data in fundamental physics that will improve our understanding of the structure of the universe.
About Aerostar International:
Aerostar International, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Raven Industries , is a U.S. manufacturer providing Aerospace Products, Military Products, Tethered Aerostats, Protective Wear and Custom Inflatables to various markets.
Further information is available at http://www.aerostar.com/, the company's website.
Forward-Looking Statements
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