NASA-funded balloon mission begins fourth campaign
Wednesday, August 17, 2016 - 15:31
in Astronomy & Space
The BARREL team is at Esrange Space Center near Kiruna, Sweden, launching a series of six scientific payloads on miniature scientific balloons. The BARREL team launched the first balloon of this campaign - the fourth for BARREL - on Aug. 13, 2016. The NASA-funded BARREL - which stands for Balloon Array for Radiation-belt Relativistic Electron Losses - primarily measures X-rays in Earth's atmosphere near the North and South poles. These X-rays are produced by electrons raining down into the atmosphere from two giant swaths of radiation that surround Earth, called the Van Allen belts. Learning about the radiation near Earth helps us to better protect our satellites.