Rocket-shaped craft tested at Taiki - 7/23/2009
Taiki, Japan.- On July 17th, Japanese Space Agency's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) performed at the launch site located in the Multipurpose Air Park in Taiki, Hokkaido Island an static deployment test of the most advanced configuration of the BOV (Balloon-based Operation Vehicle). At left can be seen an image of the operation (click to enlarge).
As you may remember from past updates BOV is a rocket-like shaped vehicle which contains an experiment module that floats free in the interior of the capsule. The system is carried to the stratosphere by a balloon and released assuring while free-falls back to the Earth up to 30 seconds of good quality microgravity. It was flown three times: a first mission known as BOV-1 carried out in 2006, a second one nomenclated as BOV-2 in 2007 (both from the now closed Sanriku Balloon Center) and the third one nomenclated as BOV-4 in past May from Taiki.
The test held at Taiki consisted mainly in a rehearsal of the pre launch procedures to investigate the possible problems that might arise during the real launch that would be carried out in 2010. A key part of the test was to hang the vehicle from the launch arm in one of the movables platforms and a reduced fuel injection in the BOV body.
Alike the previous flights, the upcoming mission would count with additional trust as plans of future development of the system include the addition of an air-breathing engine called "S-Engine" which currently is being developed by JAXA. This higher thrust propulsion system is essential to compensate rapidly increasing air-drag and will allow to extend the microgravity phase up to 60 seconds of duration.
SoRa mission landed in Canada - 7/6/2009
Longyearbyen, Svalbard Islands.- The balloon launched on July 1st at the gates of the North Pole transporting the SoRa (Sounding Radar) instrument as main payload, landed in Baffin Island on July 4th, at 12:30 UTC, a day after than anticipated. The mission originally was meant to be terminated over Greenland but strong southerly winds situated the balloon in a good path to prolong the journey and to achieve a recuperation in north Canada without risking lost the payload in the Sea. Once recovery of the payload finished it will be sent back to Italy.
As we informed in our last update, the Aerostar helium balloon measuring 800.000 cubic meters (which until now is the largest ever flown from Svalbard) was launched from the main airstrip of the Longyearbyen Airport under direction of the Nobile Amundsen Stratospheric Ballon Center (NASBC) the new balloon base established to perform long duration balloons in the North Pole. Balloon operations were managed by Steven Peterzen of ISTAR (International Science Technology And Research - Pagosa Springs, Colorado USA) under contract with the Italian Space Agency assited by a team composed mainly by locals whom never were part of a launch operation of a balloon that size in the past.
At right can be seen an image of the launch taken from a nearby hill by Trond Sanmo (click to enlarge).
The succesfull launch of the mission by a new and unexperienced team marks a milestone to the establishment of a heavy-load launch capability at the gates of the north pole, something that scientists are eager to exploit, to obtain long durations exposures of their instruments and also is a corollary to the great effort made on the project by Peterzen along with Dr. Silvia Masi from the University of Rome, La Sapienza since the first exploratory balloons launched there a few years ago including the first full circunnavigation to the north pole ever.
On the scientific side of the mission we must say that this flight was part of a much wider research programme carried out by Italian Space Agency ASI involving several payloads to be tested before being sent to explore the planets on space probes. The main payload onboard the balloon consisted of SoRa (Sounding Radar) a synthetic aperture radar with a central frequency of 163 MHz and with a short impulse connected to a down-looking Yagi-type emitting antenna with a gain of about 13 dB. It is a system similar to the one flown in several Mars exploration missions. The main objective of the balloon test was to calibrate the hardware and software instruments, to test the inversion algorithms in the penetration radar for planetary exploration, to acquire data during the flyover of the known structure ice surfaces which will be used as a reference for the process of improving and further developing the radar in conditions very close to operational. At the same time the data obtained in flight will help to deepen the knowledge about the geo-morphology of polar areas covered with ice, permafrost, of plutonic and sedimentary rocks present in the subsurface up to several kilometres in depth and with a resolution up to 15 metres.
The experiment has been completely funded by ASI and exclusively involves Italian research institutions and Italian companies.
Also were part of the mission as piggy-back payloads DUSTER a stratospheric dust collector, ISA a prototype of an accelerometer to be included in the Bepi-Colombo mission to Mercury and SIDERALE a test mission of a new Gamma Ray sensor. These instruments are Italian too.
Our thank's to Silvia Masi (G31 Experimental Cosmology Group, University of Rome "La Sapienza") and Steven Peterzen from ISTAR Group by the information provided, and the kind corrections made to the information we published earlier.
More Information:
:: http://www.rocketrange.no/news/sora-launched Information on the launch from Andoya Rocket Range
:: http://www.asi.it/it/news/ ASI press release on SoRa mission
