Two Vast, Very High Tech "Solar Energy" Powered Balloons Will Launch Soon -- Via NASA and NSF From McMurdo Station on The Ross Ice Shelf (Antarctica).

These new "zero pressure" balloons are dozens of times larger and taller than ordinary last-gen "weather" balloons. The sunshine heats the air in the ultra light bladder, providing lift, but onboard solar battery powered computers control special one way at a time vents, that either release the air from the bladder (if the whole shebang is rising too rapidly) -- or alternatively open, to take in more of the outer (very-cool) air, to be warmed (also via the nearly-constant antarctic sunshine) if it has lost a bit of altitude when the Sun is nearer the perma-frozen horizon.

This is truly. . . revolutionary. The balloons stay aloft, essentially at a constant altitude for many months -- with no external combustion / fuel source. Very impressive! Here's the latest on the coming launches, from the NSF's McMurdo Station on Antarctica’s Ross Ice Shelf:

. . .The [NASA] program is supporting two missions this year: the Payload for Ultrahigh Energy Observations (PUEO) and the General AntiParticle Spectrometer (GAPS).

NASA’s PUEO will be the first balloon mission to launch through the agency’s Astrophysics Pioneers program, which supports compelling astrophysics science at a lower cost. The PUEO payload is designed to detect signals from neutrinos, high-energy particles that travel across the universe undisturbed, carrying information about events billions of light-years away. The mission will search for radio signals created when these neutrinos from space hit ice. This will be the most sensitive survey of cosmic ultra-high energy neutrinos ever conducted, offering valuable clues about the highest-energy astrophysical processes, from the creation of black holes to neutron star mergers. . . .

Zero-pressure balloons, used in this campaign, are in equilibrium with their surroundings as they fly. They maintain a zero-pressure differential with ducts that allow gas to escape to prevent an increase in pressure from inside the balloons as they rise above Earth’s surface. This zero-pressure design, polar orbit, and constant sunlight makes the balloons very robust and well-suited for extended duration flights, such as those in this campaign. NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia manages the agency’s scientific balloon flight program. Peraton, which operates NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, provides mission planning, engineering services, and field operations for NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program. NASA’s balloons are fabricated by Aerostar.

The NASA Scientific Balloon Program is funded by the Science Mission Directorate’s Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. . . .

Excellent -- we were in need of a smile, on this otherwise rather dreary and decidedly early. . . but wintery Friday.

[Indeed -- the nightly cold, out on McMurdo Ice Station, Antarctica -- that these teams endure. . . has me quite thrilled to be at only ~minus 7 with wind chills, here tonight in the City of Big Shoulders. They endure an absolute temp of ~minus 50 (and so, windchills of ~minus 70!), on the regular, at night -- whew!]

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