European Ultralight to Heavylift Stratospheric Balloons in the

European Ultra-light to Heavy-lift Stratospheric Balloons in the Polar Regions Svalbard - Norway & Baia Terra Nova - Antarctica

The Idea… l Develop a program in the northern polar region for Long Duration Ballooning – take the project to Antarctica l Introduce science and technological payloads… small platforms < 25 kg l Bring students into the program

Location, location! Over-fly minimal population yet retain a recovery zone. This is a given for Antarctica…but rare in the north. l Impact area that would cause the minimal environmental damage. Impact and recovery in the tundra leaves scars. The Greenland Ice Sheet offers a perfect target. l

In theory, a stratospheric balloon launched from Svalbard, Norway should be carried around the polar region and return back over Svalbard…continue on, and be terminated over Greenland.

AND IN REALITY

THE PERFECT CIRCLE…ALMOST! First complete circumpolar trajectory - North 17 DAY FLIGHT Impact – July 1 st, 2006 Svalbard d e e Gr n nla Launched - June 14 th, 2006

ALTITUDE vs TIME 34 km Ballast Drop

Stratospheric Winds… Through Satellite Derived Wind Data we know that the circulation pattern should be “set-up” to support a circumpolar trajectory by the first week of June. l A model of the wind predictions was constructed…Cardillo/Musso – ISTI/CNR The model and the actual flight path coincide. l

Wind Prediction – May 30 th

The Payload Telemetry – IRIDIUM, ARGOS (Elta) l Power supply – SOLAR l Science – Magnetometer (INGV)… X-RAY Detector ( Student Experiment - University of Tromso, NO) l TELEMETRY & MAGNETOMETER BUILT BY INGV (Rome)…Gianni Romeo

features Installing scientific instruments on a pathfinder offers the opportunity of exploring Polar Regions at an affordable cost. PEGASO hosts a 3 -axis flux-gate magnetometer and is a complete flying geomagnetic observatory for studying geomagnetic crustal anomalies at continental scale as well as stratospheric circulation. PEGASO offers: • • Solar power Local data storage Bi-directional link to the ground station Ballasting and termination control

Solar cells are manufactured by depositing multiple layers of silicon alloy materials onto a thin stainless steel substrate The array is composed by very long single cells going trough the whole cylinder surface. During the flight they are lit always in the same way, for a good performance. Illumination over the plane representation of the cylindrical array System symmetry and flying area guarantee a constant illumination during the flight. This simplifies the charge control (no MPPT) Cylindrical solar array

Solar cells are manufactured by depositing multiple layers of silicon alloy materials onto a thin stainless steel substrate in a patented rollto-roll production process. The cell assembly is laminated (sealed) in flexible and durable weather resistant polymers that provide long life, high reliability. Bypass diodes are connected across each cell to produce shadow tolerance performance. The resulting solar cells are processed and connected in series to provide the required voltage. Eleven cells are connected in series to produce the required voltage for 12 volt battery charging. Solar array

Partial illumination power loss

Communication: Why IRIDIUM ? Low cost and good data rate where mandatory in this project. Point to point telemetry is difficult in polar areas, requiring too many ground stations; traditional satellite low-cost telemetry, ARGOS, is low data rate and is downlink only. Iridium is more expensive, more heavy and more complex (not more than an usual telephonic AT modem) but offers a bidiretional telemetry a good coverage in polar areas and a reasonable data rate

Iridium constellation • • 66 satellites (6 orbiting spares) a 780 km 100 minutes revolution period Communication to ground users 1616. . 1625 MHz satellite-satellite communication 23. 18 -23. 38 GHZ satellite-ground communication 19. 4. . 19. 2 GHz Ground-satellite communication 29. 1 -29. 3 GHz Digital channel speed 2400 bps

Phone used in PEGASO Ordinary Iridium phones offer both acoustic and data communication (for just 1. 5 Euro/min). The complexity of the ground station is shown below: just a notebook and an Iridium phone with a data kit.

How to build your own telemetry system Setting up a working Iridium data link is not much more difficult than building an ordinary point-to-point connection: it is just necessary to take in account the transmission delay and operate the right choice of packets length (time is money). 23 GHz 1. 6 GHz rs 232 computer 1. 6 GHz rs 232 satellites Data kit computer

PEGASO block diagram rs 232 RCM 2000 main processor rs 232 IRIDIUM data kit IRIDIUM phone antenna Main processor monitor Level adapter rs 232 Digital I/O rs 232 on-off phone GPS receiver adc board antenna Vessel temperature Arm temperature Solar array Panels temperature Panels voltage scientific adc 8 channels igniter driver To and from igniters Panels Battery current voltage power supply Charge controller 3 channels magnetometer Magnetometer head Low battery switch battery Data monitor

10 cm GPS Antenna PEGASO layout IRIDUM Antenna Mechanical assembly U 0 Temperature sensor U 2. 1 U 2. 2 Boards U 2. 3 U 4 U 5 U 6 70 cm U 1 Boards description U 0 : IRIDIUM Telephone U 1 : CPU and GPS Receiver U 2. 1: Flux Gate (Ch 1) U 2. 2: Flux Gate (Ch 2) U 2. 3: Flux Gate (Ch 3) U 3 : ADC board U 4 : power supply U 5 : charge controller U 6 : igniters driver and tester Battery Testing connector Panels connector Flux Gate Magn. conn. Ballast / Release connector

working

Ground station at INGV • Communication with 4 balloons • Data available via web server • Status via SMS • Workstations via VPN Linux PC LAN Web server modem GSM modem Local storage

Ballast releasing Ballast tube may be remotely operated during the flight. Pictures on the right show the effect of the releasing on the altitude.

Flight System Balloon – Aero. Star, SF 3 -0. 327 -. 6/0 -TA 9258 m³ l Parachute – 40 kg rating l Terminate – Redundant squibs l ARGOS Transmitter – On balloon used for tracking during flight and termination l Radar Reflectors – 2 l Meets International Rules of the Air l

PREPARING THE PAYLOAD

LAUNCH

ASCENT…

Ultra-Light Payloads Great Vehicle for technological testing l Great Vehicle for science component testing l Low cost l Easy to transport equipment l Launch from nearly any location – airport, sports field, roadway, etc. l Complete Recovery…nothing left behind l

Students and Ultra-Lite payloads Affordable for most organizations l Hands on experience l Involvement in all aspects of the program l Stepping stone to future involvement in ballooning. l

Baia Terra Nova - Antarctica Ultra-Lite Balloon launches l Known trajectory pattern l Recovery options l January 2006 launched the first PEGASO experiment from BTN. l

TRAJECTORIES OVER ANTARCTICA – NSF/NASA

l Ultra-Light systems help to teach students the various aspects of ballooning l LDB with ultra-light systems is a cost efficient way to reach near space for testing purposes. l Ultra-Light Payloads lead to Heavy-Lift Payloads. . . Like the forthcoming OLIMPO and BOOMERan. G, to be flown from Svalbards next year l

(http: //oberon. roma 1. infn. it/olimpo) OLIMPO An arcmin-resolution survey of the sky at mm and sub-mm wavelengths Silvia Masi Dipartimento di Fisica La Sapienza, Roma and the OLIMPO team

CMB anisotropy SZ clusters Galaxies 150 GHz 220 GHz 340 GHz 540 GHz 30’ mm-wave sky vs OLIMPO arrays

OLIMPO observations of a SZ Cluster • Simulated observation of a SZ cluster at 2 mm with the Olimpo array. • The large scale signals are CMB anisotropy. • The cluster is the dark spot evident in the middle of the figure. • Parameters of this observation: scans at 1 o/s, amplitude of the scans 3 op-p, detector noise 150 m. K s 1/2, 1/f knee = 0. 1 Hz, total observing time = 4 hours, comptonization parameter for the cluster y=10 -4. 3 o 3 o

The uniqueness of OLIMPO • OLIMPO measures in 4 frequency bands simultaneously. These bands optimally sample the spectrum of the SZ effect. • This allows us to clean the signal from any dust and CMB contamination, and even to measure Te by means of the relativistic corrections.

BOOMERan. G 28/Dec/1998

BOOMERan. G 06/Jan/2003

• B 98 results: First resolved map of the CMB at subhorizon scales • Flatness of the Universe • See de Bernardis et al. 2000, Netterfield et al. 2002, Ruhl et al. 2003 • B 03 results: detection of CMB polarization (E-modes) • See Masi et al. 2005, Montroy et al. 2005, Piacentini et al 2005

BOOMERan. G-FG • We plan to re-fly B 03 with an upgraded forcal plane, to go after foreground cirrus dust polarization. • This information is essential for all the planned B-modes experiments (e. g. BICEP, Dome-C etc. ) and is very difficult to measure from ground. • The BOOMERan. G optics can host an array of >100 PSB at >350 GHz.

BOOMERan. G-03 140 GHz PSB 240 GHz 340 GHz BOOMERan. GFG 340 GHz PSB Frequency range complementary to PILOT (higher f. J. F. Bernard, Toulouse) 140 GHz PSB

ISM is everywhere ! With Boom-FG we will study the polarization properties in the clean region in the northern hemisphere North 270 o south B 03 180 o 0 o 90 o Dust brightness @ 3000 GHz (log scale) 180 o 90 o

European Ultra-light to Heavy-lift Stratospheric Balloons in the Polar Regions In summary, a Svalbard-based facility provides a unique opportunity for long duration flights, to be used for didactic/outreach light experiments, as well as for heavy science payloads. The same know-how will be used for launches from Antarctica.