The First Large Balloon Launch from Antarctica

Abstract

This collection of five papers discusses the many practical problems, logistics, metrological planning, flight history and recovery operations for the first very large (11.6M cu ft) stratospheric balloon launched from Antarctica. The on-board Gamma Ray Advanced Detector (GRAD) was flown successfully to detect gamma ray emissions from Supernova 1987A. The 2500-lb payload was recovered from a 12,500-ft plateau by LC-130 aircraft. The instrumentation for command-control and telemetry, payload integration and testing, and the telemetry station installed aboard an LC-130 aircraft are described. An overview of the performance of the ARGOS satellite tracking and data-recovery system on this flight is included.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 26, 1988
Accession Number
ADA207735

Entities

People

  • John Ground
  • Kenneth Dallas
  • Ralph Cowie
  • Willard F. Thorn

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Advanced Electronics
  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Airlift Operations
  • Artificial Satellites
  • Detectors
  • Doppler Effect
  • Gamma Rays
  • Geography
  • Grids
  • Instrumentation
  • Inverters
  • Line Of Sight
  • Measurement
  • Radiation
  • Solar Energy
  • Solar Panels
  • Telemetry
  • United States

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Aerospace Test and Evaluation
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics.
  • Atmospheric Science/Meteorology

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Satellites