Purpose of the flight and payload description
The main purpose of the flight was to perform a technology demonstration to validate several systems developed at the Columbia Balloon Scientific Facility, under the supervision of Robert Salter, acting as principal investigator.
As additional cargo flown as missions of opportunity, several piggyback payloads were included, among them a module from the CUBES IN SPACE program, an international educational initiative for students aged 11 to 18 that teaches them how to design STEMscience, technology, engineering and mathematicsexperiments and provides a platform to conduct those experiments in near-space. More than 100 experiments were hosted together in a specially built module attached to one of the sides of the gondola.
The flight also carried EMIDSS (Experimental Module for the Iterative Design for Satellite Subsystems), a Mexican experimental platform developed by the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) to test electrical, electronic and other spacecraft subsystems under stratospheric conditions. The project was designed to evaluate the performance of components at altitudes of approximately 3040 km and generate data applicable to the development of future orbital spacecraft, particularly low-Earth-orbit CubeSats. EMIDSS modules incorporate flight computers, environmental sensors, GPS, power-regulation equipment and other instrumentation, with successive versions used to evaluate technologies and environmental parameters including temperature, pressure, humidity, magnetic fields and ultraviolet radiation.
The project has been conducted by the IPN in collaboration with institutions including the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente (ITESO), and has flown on several NASA Scientific Balloon Program missions.
Details of the balloon flight
Balloon launched on: 8/22/2026 at 14:31 UTC
Launch site: Scientific Flight Balloon Facility, Fort Sumner, (NM), US
Balloon launched by: Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF)
Balloon manufacturer/size/composition: Zero Pressure Balloon Raven Aerostar 4.000.000 cuft
Flight identification number: 763NT
End of flight (L for landing time, W for last contact, otherwise termination time): 8/22/2026 at 18:40 UTC
Balloon flight duration (F: time at float only, otherwise total flight time in d:days / h:hours or m:minutes - ): 4 h 8 m
Landing site: 7 km NE of Gran Quivira, New Mexico, US
External references
- Cubes in Space website
- Lanza IPN a la estratósfera EMIDSS-8 con la NASA Instituto Politécnico Nacional website
- NASA Launches First Scientific Balloon of Fort Sumner Campaign NASA website
Images of the mission
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