BARREL

Balloon Array for RBSP Relativistic Electron Losses (BARREL) is a NASA mission operated out of Dartmouth that will work with the Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) mission due to launch in 2012. The BARREL project will launch 20 balloons at a time from Antarctica in several launches over 2012 to 2014. Unlike the football-field-sized balloons typically launched at the Poles, these are each just 90 feet in diameter.[1]

Contents

Scientific Objectives

BARREL will help study the Van Allen Radiation Belts and why they wax and wane over time. Each BARREL balloon will carry instruments to measure particles that are ejected from the Belts that make it all the way to Earth's atmosphere.[1] By comparing such data to that of RBSP—which will be up beyond the atmosphere observing the Belts from a closer viewpoint—the two experiments can try to correlate observations in the Radiation Belts with the number of particles ejected.[2] This will help distinguish between various theories of what causes electron loss in the Belts.[3]

Organization

The Principal Investigator is Robyn Millan at Dartmouth College. BARREL is part of NASA's Living With a Star program.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b Karen C. Fox. "Launching Balloons in Antarctica". NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/news/barrel-antarctica.html. 
  2. ^ a b "Living With A Star Program: Missions". NASA. http://lws.gsfc.nasa.gov/missions.html. 
  3. ^ "Balloon Array for RBSP Relativistic Electron Losses". Dartmouth Balloon Program. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rmillan/barrel.html. 

External links