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High-altitude balloon carries YoUDee across Atlantic
3:02 p.m., June 7, 2006--A high-altitude helium balloon operated by UD's Department of Physics and Astronomy and launched Thursday, June 1, from NASA's Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Kiruna, Sweden, landed safely at 2:30 a.m., Wednesday, June 7, near Victoria Island, an island located north of Canada's Northwest Territories, near the Arctic Circle. Dubbed AESOP, an acronym for Anti-Electron Sub-Orbital Payload, the 40-million-cubic-foot balloon, which measures approximately 650 feet in diameter at its float altitude and has UD mascot YoUDee emblazoned on its shell, made its way northwest across the Atlantic Ocean, over the northern tip of Iceland and Greenland's ice cap, and past Canada's Baffin Island, where it reached an altitude of 135,500 feet and a cruising speed of 51 knots.
According to James Roth, a senior electronics and instrument specialist in UD's Department of Physics and Astronomy, the purpose of the AESOP flights is to measure the solar modulation of cosmic-ray particles. AESOP has completed several shorter-term flights over Canada in the past, but this five-day Atlantic crossing was its longest and most ambitious journey so far. “This has been the balloon's first long-duration flight,” Roth said. “In the past, the flights have been about two days and have usually been launched from and landed in Canada.” Roth, along with John Clem, a research associate professor in UD's Department of Physics and Astronomy, helped to monitor the balloon's flight via computers connected to NASA's centrally controlled system in Texas. He stayed up to witness the payload cut, and learned a few hours later that it had landed about 150 feet offshore on thick ice. “The chase flight located the payload, and later on today a helicopter will fly out to recover it, so this is good news,” Roth said.
For more information about AESOP, go to [www.bartol.udel.edu/~clem/aesoplee.html] Article by Becca Hutchinson
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