NASA balloons to start flying again.
There is considerable interest in the sUAS world in lifting platforms to high altitude with balloons. What happens at NASA should be of interest.
NASA’s scientific balloon program is finally resuming flights this month after a mishap back in April put a halt on the project.
The high-altitude balloons fly instruments for scientific and technological investigations that help us better understand the universe. The scientific balloons are composed of a lightweight polyethylene film and fly to altitudes of nearly 25 miles carrying payloads weighing up to 6,000 pounds.
Recently, NASA listed a total of 25 causes of the accident including insufficient risk analysis, contingency planning, personnel training, government oversight and public safety accommodations. After an intense evaluation of safety processes following the failed launch attempt from Australia, NASA has deemed the balloons ready for departure.
“NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Wallops Flight Facility, and contractor balloon team have done an outstanding job over the past eight months to develop and implement plans to return the balloons to flight,” said Jon Morse, director of the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington in a NASA press release.
The new flights are scheduled throughout the coming month over Antarctica. This flight will be different in that NASA will use a vehicle built to handle the large LBD (long-duration balloon) to launch the balloons instead of a commercially obtained mobile crane (used during Australia mishap).
This is the incident
Heres the report from that incident
RELEASE : 10-269
NASA Releases Report About Australia Balloon Mishap
WASHINGTON — A NASA panel that investigated the unsuccessful April 28 launch of a scientific balloon from Alice Springs, Australia, has released its report.
NASA was attempting to launch the balloon carrying a gamma-ray telescope belonging to the University of California at Berkeley. The Nuclear Compton Telescope, which was partially destroyed in the accident, was designed to look for distant galaxies from a vantage point high in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
The scientific payload inadvertently separated from a mobile crane being used for the launch, and it was dragged approximately 150 yards by the airborne balloon. Spectators narrowly escaped injury when the payload hit an airport fence and a car.
NASA’s Mishap Investigation Board determined weather conditions were acceptable for launch, and there were no technical problems with the vehicle or the payload.
The board was led by Michael L. Weiss of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The board’s report listed 25 proximate, intermediate and root causes related to insufficient risk analysis, contingency planning, personnel training, technical knowledge, government oversight and public safety accommodations.
“There is no question in our minds that balloon launches are fragile processes,” Weiss said. “The mishap board reviewed a large volume of information about the accident and conducted numerous interviews with eyewitnesses. But in the course of our investigation, we found surprisingly few documented procedures for balloon launches. No one considered the launch phase to be a potential hazard.”
The purpose of the investigation was to discover what caused the mishap and provide recommendations to help prevent similar future mishaps. The board listed 44 recommendations regarding the need for better communication; more robust range and ground safety plans and procedures; and better understanding of potentially unsafe conditions that can lead to accidents.
Immediately after the accident in Australia, launch operations at all of NASA’s balloon sites were suspended. NASA’s Balloon Program Office will resume launches once it has implemented and verified new procedures to safeguard launch crews and the public.
“We have learned a lot from this incident, and we’ll have a better balloon program because of it,” said Rob Strain, Goddard Space Flight Center director.
The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, conducts balloon launches for NASA under contract to the Balloon Program Office. The program office is based at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, which is managed by Goddard.
