BARREL 1I Ephemeris: Balloon GPS and Magnetic Coordinates at 4-Second Intervals

Antarctic and Arctic stratospheric balloon campaigns from 2013 to 2016 collected this data. The dataset contains geographic and magnetic coordinates, including balloon epoch time, latitude, longitude, and altitude, recorded every 4 seconds. It was produced by NASA's BARREL mission to study electron precipitation from Earth's radiation belts.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal and spatial patterns of relativistic electron precipitation based on the 4-second time-series data.
• Correlating balloon-based X-ray measurements with in-situ satellite data based on the provided geographic and magnetic coordinates.
• Modeling magnetic field variations using derived magnetic coordinates from the IRBEM library.
• Studying the spatial scale of electron precipitation events based on the constellation of balloon measurements across magnetic local time.

Strengths

• Data is collected at a high temporal resolution of one sample every 4 seconds.
• Coordinates are derived from multiple sources: GPS for geographic and the IRBEM library for magnetic.
• Over 50 stratospheric balloon flights were conducted across four campaigns from 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 for large-scale analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data obtained from onboard GPS units on stratospheric balloons, with magnetic coordinates derived using the IRBEM FORTRAN library.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 14:15:21.092857; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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