BARREL 1B: Rate Counter Diagnostics for Radiation Belt Electron Precipitation

Over 50 stratospheric balloon flights were launched across four campaigns from 2013 to 2016 in Antarctica and Sweden. The BARREL mission, a NASA Living with a Star project, measured uncalibrated rate counts as 4-second accumulations to study relativistic electron precipitation from Earth's radiation belts. Data collection was coordinated with the Van Allen Probes mission and other ground-based instruments.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal variations in electron precipitation based on 4-second rate count accumulations.
• Characterizing the spatial scale of relativistic electron precipitation based on multi-balloon array measurements.
• Correlating balloon-based X-ray measurements with in-situ plasma wave and particle data from the Van Allen Probes.
• Studying magnetic local time (MLT) dependencies of precipitation events based on the balloon constellation design.

Strengths

• Data spans four distinct balloon campaigns from 2013 to 2016, providing multi-year coverage.
• Over 50 balloon flights provide measurements from an evolving array across multiple magnetic local times.
• Mission was designed in coordination with the comprehensive Van Allen Probes in-situ measurements.

Limitations

• Rate count values are uncalibrated and may wrap near or above 16384 counts per second.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Measurements from rate counters on stratospheric balloons during the BARREL mission.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 04:31:29.427869; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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