Ultra Long Duration Balloon Images
Also refer to The Ultra-Long Duration Balloon Program
The Ultra-Long Duration Balloon will carry several-ton experiments for 100 days above 99.9% of the atmosphere. The first flight with a scientific payload will be in December 2001.
Credit: NASA/Wallops
BESS (Balloon-borne Experiment with a Superconducting Solenoidal magnet) searches for antimatter during 36-hour flights from Lynn Lake, Manitoba, Canada.
Credit: The BESS collaboration
Balloon fabric is about as thick as a sandwich bag. The fabric for the Ultra-Long Duration Balloon, 0.0381 mm, is an extruded polyethylene film with a high-density layer in between two linear low-density layers, like a slice of salami on soft white bread.
Credit: NASA/Wallops
![[download 300 dpi TIFF, 700k]](fabric.jpg){kind=link}
The unique pumpkin-shape design of the Ultra-Long Duration Balloon shifts most of the stress to the tendons. This has allowed engineers to use a lighter, more durable material than what is used on spherical balloons to support 3,500-pound payloads. Pictured here is a small working model.
Credit: NASA/Wallops
BOOMERANG is an experiment that flies annually from Antarctica to measure the cosmic microwave background, an essential parameter for understanding the shape and expansion of the Universe. The January 1999 effort was a textbook flight, with the balloon traveling 8,000 kilometers around the pole and landing only 50 kilometers from the launch site 10 1/2 days later. Mt. Erebus looms in the background.
Credit: BOOMERANG collaboration
This diagram shows the uninflated ultra-long duration balloon as tall as the Eiffel Tower. When inflated, the balloon dwarfs a Boeing 747 and the Goodyear Airship. The inflated diameter is 176 meters.
Credit: NASA
ISOMAX prepares for launch from Lynn Lake, Manitoba, Canada. This two-ton experiment finds the ages of cosmic rays using a method analogous to carbon-14 dating.
Credit: ISOMAX collaboration
An artist's conception of a futuristic Mars mission. Ultra-long duration balloon could conceivable float above the Martian atmosphere, deploying smaller probes to study closer to the ground, and eventually be retrieved by another space craft orbiting the red planet.
Credit: NASA
![[download 72 dpi JPEG]](mars.jpg){kind=link}
