Details of the balloon and launch operations

Launch site: Scientific Flight Balloon Facility, New Mexico, US
Launch team: Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF)
Balloon: Open balloon (zero pressure) Raven - 39.570.000 cu ft - 0.8 Mil.
Serial number: -
Flight identification number: 569N
Campaign: -
Payload weight: 3220 lbs
Gondola weight: -
Overall weight: 5500 lbs

Description of the payload or experiment

HERO (High Energy Replicated Optics)

Responsable institution: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
Principal Investigator: Dr. Brian Ramsey

The instrument, is the first one aimed to obtain focused images of astronomical X-ray sources at hard X-ray energies (20-75 keV).

The key component (the hard X-ray optics) are full-shell electroformed-nickel-replicated (ENR) mirrors coated with iridium to enhance high-energy reflectivity. As the critical grazing angle for reflection varies approximately inversely with energy, these mirrors employ smaller angles than their low-energy counterparts and consequently have smaller diameters and collecting areas per shell. The mirrors have a 6 meter focal length.

To exploit the full potential of the HERO optics necessitates a balloon gondola that can provide commensurate pointing accuracy, stability, and pointing knowledge. The HERO gondola utilizes a coarse aspect system for slewing based on a differential global positioning system (GPS) and a fine inertial-mode pointing system that uses a novel day/night aspect camera system to update onboard gyroscopes. The total payload dimensions are 25 feet long, 6.5 ft wide and 16 ft high.

Performance in flight and data obtained

The instrument performed very well. The scientific team managed to made during the flight 4 observations of galactic x-ray sources and one observation of an extragalactic source.