Qualification of the NASA Super Pressure Balloon

Abstract

The development and qualification by National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Balloon Program Office of a large pumpkin shaped Super Pressure Balloon is part of the longer term strategy to offering the capability of extended duration stratospheric flights of large science instruments at mid latitudes. The goal is to lift 900 kg of science to greater than 33 km on a balloon that will fly at a near constant pressure altitude for extended periods. Float altitude excursions can be reduced by an order of magnitude or more and would not require ballast for altitude stabilization to be flown, even in midlatitudes. Two ~532,200 m (18.8-MCF) pumpkin shaped Super Pressure Balloons were launched in the past few months, one from Antarctica in late 2014 and one from New Zealand in March of 2015. Each of these flight furthered the successes of this new flight capability for the NASA program. The goals of these test flights were to verify the balloon design through demonstration of balloon deployment and subsequent pressurization and flight of the structures. Details of the flight preparations, launches, and flight performance are presented in this paper. The Super Pressure Balloon launched from Wanaka, New Zealand was a record setting flight. This balloon flew at a near constant altitude for over 32 days, nearly circling the globe without the need to ballast during the flight. This has never been achieved before with this size payload at these altitudes for this duration. These flights represent critical steps in the process to qualify this balloon design as a standard flight offering by the NASA Balloon Program, and a new platform for the science community.