NASA announced that on Saturday their GUSTO mission broke the record for longest flight of a heavy-lift, long duration balloon of its size. The previous record was set by the SuperTIGER mission in 2012 at 55 days, 1 hour, and 34 minutes. It is currently floating roughly 100,000 feet above the surface of Antarctica.
GUSTO, which is short for Galactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory, is measuring emissions from the cosmic material found in space between stars. According to NASA, this data will help scientists determine the life cycle of interstellar gas in our Milky Way galaxy, witness the formation and destruction of star-forming clouds, and understand the dynamics and gas flow in the vicinity of the center of our galaxy.
NASA is providing a live tracking website of the balloon here.
The mission launched on December 31 from McMurdo, Antarctica. It remains in the air today. Beyond beating SuperTIGER’s 55 days in flight, the plan for GUSTO is to remain airborne for 100-170 days in total.
“GUSTO will provide the first complete study of all phases of the stellar life cycle, from the formation of molecular clouds, through star birth and evolution, to the formation of gas clouds and the re-initiation of the cycle,” said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director in the Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “NASA has a great history of launching observatories in the Astrophysics Explorers Program with new and unique observational capabilities. GUSTO continues that tradition.”
The Ultralong-Duration Balloon (ULDB) is carrying a telescope with carbon, oxygen and nitrogen emission line detectors. According to NASA, this unique combination of data will provide the spectral and spatial resolution information needed for the study team to untangle the complexities of the interstellar medium, and map out large sections of the plane of our Milky Way galaxy and the nearby galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The balloon and payload is quite large. The ULDB is a 39 million cubic feet volume zero-pressure balloon. The payload is roughly 4,400 pounds and measures about 20 feet by 20 feet. According to NASA, more than 200 blimps could fit inside this massive balloon.
This project is costing roughly $40 million, which includes balloon launch funding and the cost of post-launch operations and data analysis.
