Workshop for Ultra Long Duration Balloons
Contact:
Christopher Wanjek
wanjek@milkyway.gsfc.nasa.gov
301-286-4453November 4, 1998
Greenbelt, Md. -- NASA's Ultra Long Duration Balloon (ULDB) Program is conducting a one-day workshop on November 12 at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to identify the types of technology needed to support ULDB science missions and to summarize funding opportunities in NASA's technology development programs.
Speakers include Vernon Jones, Senior Science Program Executive at NASA Headquarters, and Peter Ulrich, Division Director. The workshop agenda includes presentations on existing balloon technology, trajectory predictions, weather predictions, power systems, pointing systems, recovery systems and planetary balloons.
Ultra Long Duration Balloons, designed to stay afloat in the stratosphere for up to several months with payloads of over a ton, are more than just a "poor man's satellite," according to Jack Tueller, the balloon project scientist at GSFC's Laboratory of High Energy Astrophysics. On the contrary, the ULDB is all about good science, capable of facilitating many types of analysis more effectively than space satellites.
"Instead of spending the money on rockets, you can spend the money on better payloads," said Tueller, referring to the Pegasus rocket, the most inexpensive of NASA's launchers yet still 10-times more expensive than a balloon launch.
"This way, you can create larger, more sophisticated payloads and take more risks, because if an instrument fails, you can recover your load and simply relaunch it. A balloon launch is also much more flexible than a rocket launch. If you miss the launch date, it's easy enough to reschedule it."
Tueller envisions a new paradigm of payload design, one in which scientists can put more of their energy and money into creating payloads that can be launched, tinkered with, and relaunched. Such a design eliminates the rigorous and expensive testing necessary for long-duration space missions. Also, the flexibility of a balloon launch -- involving, literally, only a handful of people and an airport runway -- frees the scientists from making time compromises.
Tueller said that ideal scientific loads for a balloon launch could be for hard X-ray surveys and cosmic ray background analysis, whose equipment tends to be too heavy for Pegasus. Remember, you pay by the pound.
"It's interesting to compare a rocket and a balloon in terms of pound/day," said Tueller. "Pegasus will carry 500 lbs. of equipment for one year in space; a ULDB will carry 3,000 lbs. for 40 days. That's on the same scale."
Aside from weight issues, there is also the logistics. For superior X-ray and gamma ray observations, scientists are designing light collectors up to four meters wide, as opposed to half-meter wide collectors now in use. Collectors that wide can't fit on a rocket without being carefully folded, Tueller said. But they can be easily packed into a balloon launch.
Goddard is developing a technology roadmap for the ULDB program that summarizes available technology and outlines NASA technology development programs in progress. New technology requirements for ULDB include trajectory control, recovery and instrument pointing. This technology roadmap will be discussed at the workshop, along with crosscutting and related NASA technology development programs.
The goal of this workshop is to encourage potential innovators with new ideas to propose balloon technology that will greatly enhance science opportunities in space. The workshop begins at 8:30AM it the Building 8 auditorium on the GSFC campus. For questions on meeting content, contact Jack Tueller at tueller@gsfc.nasa.gov. For general information, contact Westover Consultants at wc@westover.com.
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