2017 NASA Balloon Program Update

摘要

The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Balloon Program offers low cost access to near space for the science community. The needs of the science community continue to evolve and the NASA Balloon Program continues to evolve to support by providing enhanced capabilities across a spectrum of balloon related disciplines. An operational overview will detail campaigns conducted over the past two years and highlight some of the particular missions conducted. Operationally, the program has experienced a continuous 10 year production period for qualified zero pressure balloons without a flight failure. In addition to being a platform for science investigations, the scientific balloon can be used for technology developments. NASA Balloon Program provides an excellent training ground for the next generation of NASA scientists and engineers who are involved in end-to-end developments from design, built, test, balloon flight, and analysis. This paper presents an overview of the key highlights over the past two years including campaigns, new capabilities, development efforts and upcoming plans that position the Program for the future.