Steward Observatory balloon mission breaks NASA record 22 miles above Antarctica

Fifty-eight days in the past, on a virtually windless morning on the Ross Ice Shelf, a stadium-size balloon took flight above Antarctica, carrying with it far infrared know-how from the College of Arizona’s Steward Observatory searching for clues in regards to the stellar life cycle in our galaxy and past.

GUSTO—quick for the Galactic / Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory—has now damaged the file as NASA’s longest-flying heavy-lift balloon mission, which beforehand stood at 55 days, 1 hour and 34 minutes. At the moment, the large zero-pressure balloon is driving stratospheric air currents 120,000 ft above the Antarctic continent, amassing far infrared radio emissions from the matter between stars. GUSTO surpassed the earlier file at 10:22 a.m. Saturday Tucson time.

The faint terahertz indicators that GUSTO seeks—with frequencies as much as 1,000,000 occasions increased than the waves emitted by an FM radio—are simply absorbed by water vapor within the Earth’s ambiance earlier than they will attain ground-based telescopes. Solely very dry or high-elevation locations are well-suited for observatories that catch a few of these elusive photons, such because the excessive Atacama Desert and the South Pole.

In quest of drier circumstances, “we’re pushed to go to increasingly distant locations,” stated Steward Observatory astronomy professor Chris Walker, principal investigator for the GUSTO mission, who has labored on telescope initiatives in Antarctica since 1994. Balloon science opens new potentialities for the quickly evolving discipline of terahertz spectroscopy, permitting observers to gather far infrared indicators earlier than they’re misplaced within the decrease layers of the ambiance, at a fraction of the price of a totally space-based telescope.

Balloon telescopes comparable to GUSTO marry the power of space statement with the proximity of Earth-based operations, and so they include distinctive challenges. A profitable launch requires an ideal climate window, with low wind speeds each on the bottom and within the stratosphere.

When circumstances enable, the launch itself is a high-drama spectacle. Help vehicles pushed out onto the ice shelf pipe helium into the balloon, which luffs and flaps “like a sail” because it fills, Walker stated. “You start to listen to the push of the helium because the balloon inflates, and once they let it go, it rumbles because it unfurls.” It is a tenuous time—if there’s an imperfection or a wind shear, the balloon can shred. Of the record-breaking undertaking, Walker stated “ballooning is the toughest factor I’ve carried out professionally, but it surely’s additionally essentially the most rewarding.”

If all goes effectively—because it did for GUSTO—the balloon lifts the telescope inside its specialised gondola and carries it 22 miles above the Earth to the distant seam between the stratosphere and space. From right here, astronomers depend on the round currents of wind above the Antarctic continent throughout the Southern Hemisphere summer time to hold the balloon in broad loops, amassing the sunshine signatures of cosmic chemical substances.

Aboard GUSTO, emission line detectors acquire molecular details about the interstellar medium—the cosmic gasoline and dust between stars that provides delivery to new stars and galaxies.

“We have been all a part of the interstellar medium—each atom and molecule in your physique was in some unspecified time in the future gasoline and dust flowing between the celebrities,” Walker stated. To complicate issues, the chemistry of the universe is completely different right this moment than it was after the large bang. To know the story of star formation within the universe—and by extension, the story of our personal origins—astronomers are fascinated about evaluating the composition of the interstellar medium in galaxies of various ages.

GUSTO goals to map out distribution of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen within the younger Milky Way and within the neighboring Massive Magellanic Cloud, which has traits similar to a lot older galaxies. A comparability of the 2 galaxies will assist the GUSTO staff present the primary full spectroscopic examine of all phases of the stellar life cycle, from the event of interstellar gasoline clouds, to the formation of stellar nurseries, to the delivery and evolution of stars.

The GUSTO mission has traveled a protracted path to succeed in the stratosphere. Walker’s staff submitted a NASA Explorer Program proposal in 2014, and the undertaking was chosen by NASA in 2017. The gondola for the mission was constructed by the Johns Hopkins College Utilized Physics Laboratory; Walker’s staff from Steward Observatory at UArizona offered the telescope and instrumentation—referred to as the “payload”—working alongside varied companions together with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

In August 2023, the GUSTO staff carried out a dangle take a look at on the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas. From there, the totally built-in gondola and payload, weighing roughly as a lot as an SUV, traveled to Antarctica aboard a NASA C-130H cargo plane—the primary time a balloon mission had shipped totally assembled by air. In Antarctica, the GUSTO staff spent the autumn and winter months taking each day 12-kilometer journeys from McMurdo Station to the hangar to organize the telescope for launch, touring aboard Antarctic vans with colossal low-pressure tires throughout the frozen terrain.

On Dec. 31, a decade after the GUSTO staff had submitted its analysis proposal, the mission launched amid low winds and clear skies, the white balloon billowing up towards the backdrop of icy Mount Erebus.

On the UArizona campus, GUSTO researchers proceed to train endurance in excessive circumstances. Whereas many members of the GUSTO staff traveled to McMurdo Station to organize for the mission launch, Craig Kulesa, Steward Observatory affiliate analysis professor and GUSTO deputy principal investigator, “deployed” to the Utilized Analysis Constructing on the UArizona campus, Walker stated. From there, in a windowless room, Kulesa operates the payload in flight, usually sleeping on the ground and sharing the controls with a Steward Observatory staff.

Knowledge arrives in real-time by a various community of telecommunications applied sciences, together with geosynchronous satellites, Iridium and StarLink. GUSTO staff members at UArizona and Johns Hopkins work across the clock to observe and remotely handle the instrumentation and gondola, respectively. A 24-hour Zoom line connects companions throughout continents, from Harvard to Holland.

Pulling up a reside feed of GUSTO’s flight path, Walker confirmed the trail the balloon has already traveled above the 5.4-million-square-mile continent, every loop a unique colour on the display. The mission has no set date for touchdown—for the primary time, NASA has given clearance for the balloon to fly for so long as it could actually, even when it strays past the sting of the Antarctic continent or lands the place it can’t be retrieved.

It will likely be the longest stratospheric heavy-lift balloon mission in historical past. Of the record-breaking flight.

“GUSTO has confirmed that balloons can be utilized to do actually groundbreaking science, not only for just a few days, however over weeks and weeks of time,” Walker stated.

The size of the flight will in the end be dictated by how lengthy the cooling system can run (onboard, a liquid helium tank is anticipated to final into March) and by the change in temperature as Antarctic days start to shorten. Balloons comparable to GUSTO can solely fly long-duration missions throughout the summer time in polar areas, the place the balloon stays in fixed daylight and doesn’t sink within the cooling night time air.

The overlapping blue, inexperienced and crimson signatures of GUSTO’s flight loops present up small on Walker’s display, however they characterize an infinite step in terahertz astronomy: 4,800 kilos of UArizona know-how transferring on the excessive fringe of the ambiance for longer than ever earlier than.

If Walker’s subsequent analysis proposal goes by, the identical instrumentation presently aboard GUSTO could also be examined in space, searching for the elusive far infrared signatures of planet-forming programs and liveable zones.

“In case you’re not pushing the sting, what is the level?” Walker stated.