The French balloon program advancements in CNES balloon flight train & gondola developments

Abstract

The French Space Agency (CNES) has been supporting scientific ballooning since its establishment in 1962. Flights of zero pressure balloon, whose volume could be as large as 800 000 m 3 (28 millions of cubic feet), have been performed at high success rates from launch sites in France, Spain and Sweden. The flight train, part of the aerostat hanging from the balloon hook (nadir end fitting of the balloon), is made of lines to bind its different components. In the CNES configuration, the flight train, whose mass could reach 1 000 Kg, comprises (starting from the balloon) : • -|the recovery system with the load parachutes and the cut off device; • -|the house keeping gondola (NSO) to control the aerostat flight : localisation, operational telemetry (TM) and telecommand (TC); • -|the scientific gondola, whose mass may vary from 30 Kg to 700 Kg, with its dedicated telemetry and telecommand system. Some scientific payloads, such as telescope or spectrometer, requires a pointing system to perform its measurements. From various development activities of balloon flight train and gondola by CNES, this paper presents an overview of three main areas : flight train recovery systems, aerostat TM /TC systems and gondola with pointing systems for scientific payload.