Launch of 2X & some ephemeral BARREL street art

Hot on the heels of the team at Halley, SANAE saw to the launch of payload 2X this afternoon, now aloft and doing fine.

Coincidentally, while on my way into work, typical of the extraordinary little serendipities so common in Santa Cruz, the following U-Haul was sitting in my driveway this morning:

Having some construction paper and a little time to spare, there's no way I couldn't not, not add some small additions to the already wonderful 'Venture Across America #89'

Hopefully the neighbors understand.  

Payload 2K was launched

We had another successful launch from Halley this morning. 2K is up and floating well.

We may have more news this afternoon if the winds at SANAE diminish. They are ready and waiting to launch payload 2X!

From the ice: BARREL Status Update #15

  The Halley team launched Payload 2J at 0953 UT today. Unfortunately, we had to terminate shortly after the launch. The ascent rate looked normal initially, but then started to decrease and the balloon was starting to descend on its own. This indicates that there was a hole or tear in the top part of the balloon. The terminate command was sent at 1019 UT. The payload landed at 1023 UT about 8.5 km from the station. We have been in contact with the payload since it landed and it appears to be stationary. There is a good chance we'll be able to go recover it tomorrow when the station mountaineer returns to base, so he can make sure the area is safe.

Payload 2I continues to see a lot of x-ray activity.  Geomagnetic activity is winding down somewhat but there are still some active regions on the sun that could produce a large flare.

The SANAE team has a possible launch opportunity tomorrow. Payload 2X is ready to go and they have been bench-testing Payload 2Y today. At Halley, we completed the system test of Payload 2K so it is now flight-ready as well. We expect a launch opportunity at Halley on Sunday or Monday.


Robyn

Check out the story about us on NASA

Hey all,

We have another great article on this year's campaign on the NASA website.

From the ice: BARREL Status Update #14

Hi all, 

Another windy day here at Halley. But, we did manage to finish the full system test of payload 2J so it's now ready to fly. We also have 2K going through bench testing. The SANAE team finished getting 2X flight ready. They were waiting for the winds to die down for most of the day, but it never happened. They've started bench testing 2Y as well. Tomorrow looks like a possibility for Halley, but the winds are expected to rise again through the day. So, we'll have to see if we get a decent window to launch. On a more positive note, geomagnetic activity has been increasing and we saw an extremely intense precipitation event at payload 2I. Payload 2W saw much weaker precipitation so must have been on the equatorward edge of it. It was restricted to our lowest energy channel (at ring current energies). The relativistic electron flux measured by GOES has been on the rise throughout the day, so I expect we'll start seeing some higher energy precipitation soon.

Robyn

From Alexa... I just wanted to add that with all these substorms and the Solar Wind conditions continuing, there is a good chance that those in the Northern US and Canada (as well as the rest of the Northern Hemisphere or much farther south in the Souther Hemisphere, say +/- 45 deg latitudes) have a good shot at seeing the northern lights, as long as it's not cloudy like it is here in Vermont. You can check your chances using http://aurorasaurus.org. Just remember that as we get closer to midnight, we move into a region of streched magnetic field which means that the aurora oval starts to expand southward. Substorm injections, and thus where the particles are precipitated which can create the aurora, also tend to happen around midnight and into the dawn sector (midnight - 6 am). 

You can also keep up to date with the current space weather at spaceweather.com. The chances for seeing the aurora increase when Bz is southward. You can also look at the AE index.  If it looks like something seen on January 2nd between 17 - 19 hrs, then you know that there is a substorm currently happening which can create aurora. It's always best though if you can look at a magnetometer which is close to where you are located. If you see it get higher and then quickly lower, you are likely going to see the aurora. If you are far enough north (or south) you don't have to have a full on geomagnetic storm to see the lights, but for most of us, it helps to have the storm. 

Happy aurora hunting, and to wet the taste buds here's a picture of the aurora I took while at the Cluster workshop this fall. This was during a much weaker geomagnetic event, but I was also quiet far north. If you want to take photos, you need to have the shutter speed set to something like 8 seconds, but to get some of the background images (like a well placed barn or people) into the image, try something around 25 - 30 seconds long. In either case, make sure to bring your tripod!

The Sun was busy last night.

Last night there were a few flares from the Sun, most in positions which are likely geo-effective (are going to hit the Earth). The larges was a M9, almost an X-class. The solar flare have four categories, B, C, M, and X with X being the largest and the most likely to produce longer lasting geomagnetic storms, if they hit the Earth. Space is very spacious, so even if the Sun erupts, there is a small likelihood that that eruption will hit the Earth. To further complicate things, only those eruptions where the magnetic field is pointing southward are likely to produce geomagnetic storms. Even the the eruptions that point northward though can cause problems with communication systems.

Hopefully for our campaign, these larger flares will have produced CME's that we'll see within the next few days.

From the ice: BARREL Status Update # 13

Hi all, 

Today, both the Halley and SANAE teams had strong surface winds, so we worked on getting our next payloads flight-ready. The winds are still expected to be strong tomorrow but one never knows in Antarctica. If we can't launch tomorrow, Friday looks much more promising. Solar and geomagnetic activity are picking up as well. We've continued to observe somewhat weak but intensifying precipitation at two balloons.  There were also two M-class (an Alexa side note, one was almost an x-class, or in other words a big one instead of a moderate one) flares on the sun today, so we have a chance for some increased activity over the next few days.

Robyn