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

Over 50 stratospheric balloon flights collected geographic and magnetic coordinate data every 4 seconds during campaigns from 2013 to 2016. The BARREL Mission, a NASA Living with a Star project, launched balloons from Antarctica and Sweden to study electron precipitation from Earth's radiation belts. Geographic coordinates were obtained from onboard GPS, while magnetic coordinates were derived using the IRBEM library.

Use Cases

• Analyzing temporal variations in electron precipitation based on 4-second epoch time and coordinate data
• Mapping the spatial scale of relativistic electron precipitation based on latitude and longitude coordinates
• Correlating balloon-based X-ray measurements with in-situ satellite data based on the coordinated campaign design
• Studying magnetic local time (MLT) distributions of precipitation events based on the balloon array strategy

Strengths

• Data collected from over 50 balloon flights across four campaigns, providing multiple observational windows
• Coordinates are recorded at a high temporal resolution of 4 seconds
• Data is derived from two authoritative sources: onboard GPS and the IRBEM modeling library

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 returned from balloon payloads equipped with GPS and processed using the IRBEM library.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 13:44:43.867347; freshness should be verified

Geography

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