BARREL 1A: Balloon Ephemeris Data for Radiation Belt Studies

BARREL 1A Ephemeris data provides geographic and magnetic coordinates for stratospheric balloons launched to study electron precipitation from Earth's Radiation Belts. The data includes balloon epoch time, latitude, longitude, and altitude recorded every 4 seconds from GPS and derived magnetic coordinates using the IRBEM library. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration collected this data during multiple campaigns from Antarctica and Sweden between 2013 and 2016.

Use Cases

• Mapping relativistic electron precipitation events based on balloon location and magnetic coordinates
• Analyzing spatial and temporal variations of electron precipitation based on the balloon constellation array across magnetic local time
• Correlating balloon-based X-ray spectrometer measurements with in-situ plasma wave and particle data from the Van Allen Probes
• Characterizing the spatial scale of precipitation at relativistic energies based on the balloon array observations

Strengths

• Data collected at a high temporal resolution of 4 seconds
• Coordinates derived from onboard GPS and the IRBEM library for magnetic field modeling
• Over 50 stratospheric balloons launched across four campaigns spanning 2013 to 2016

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data returned from balloon payloads every 4 seconds, with geographic coordinates from GPS and magnetic coordinates derived using the IRBEM FORTRAN library.

Time Range

Campaigns conducted in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 04:31:47.516784; freshness should be verified

Geography

Balloon launches from Halley Bay, Antarctica; SANAE IV base, Antarctica; and Esrange Space Center, Kiruna, Sweden.