BARREL 1O: Balloon Housekeeping Voltage, Temperature, Current, and Status Data

BARREL was a NASA multi-balloon mission studying electron losses from Earth's Radiation Belts. This Level 2 dataset provides housekeeping voltage, temperature, current, and payload status values recorded every 40 seconds from balloon-borne instruments. Over 50 stratospheric balloons were launched across four campaigns from Antarctica and Sweden between 2013 and 2016.

Use Cases

• Analyzing instrument health and environmental conditions based on voltage, temperature, and current readings.
• Studying temporal correlations between payload status and relativistic electron precipitation events.
• Modeling the spatial scale of electron precipitation using data from a constellation of balloons spread across magnetic local time.

Strengths

• Data is collected at a consistent 40-second cadence, providing regular time-series measurements.
• Over 50 balloon payloads were launched, offering a multi-point observational array.
• Campaigns were coordinated with the Van Allen Probes mission and other ground-based instruments for contextual analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The description notes some payloads may have sensor layout differences not reflected in these nominal records.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Instrument measurements from balloon-borne X-ray spectrometers and DC magnetometers.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 04:15:54.564500; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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