BARREL 1G: Balloon Housekeeping Voltage, Temperature, Current, and Status, 40 s Data

BARREL 1G housekeeping data provides voltage, temperature, current, and payload status values recorded every 40 seconds from a NASA balloon mission. The BARREL Mission launched over 50 stratospheric balloons from Antarctica and Sweden between 2013 and 2016 to study electron precipitation from Earth's radiation belts. This Level 2 data is processed from the nominal sensor layout and is hosted by NASA on Data.gov.

Use Cases

• Monitor instrument health and operational status based on housekeeping voltage and current readings.
• Analyze environmental conditions during balloon flights based on temperature sensor data.
• Correlate payload status with X-ray spectrometer and magnetometer observations for event analysis.
• Study temporal variations in the stratosphere based on the 40-second sampling interval.

Strengths

• Data is collected at a consistent 40-second interval, providing regular time-series measurements.
• Mission involved over 50 balloon launches across four campaigns from 2013 to 2016.
• Data is part of a NASA Living with a Star Mission of Opportunity, designed to augment the Van Allen Probes.

Limitations

• Analog sensor data is based on a nominal layout; some payload differences may not be reflected.
• 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 (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by instrumentation on BARREL stratospheric balloons carrying X-ray spectrometers and magnetometers.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 04:24:35.438815; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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