BARREL 2E Ephemeris: Balloon GPS and Magnetic Coordinates at 4-Second Intervals

Antarctic and Arctic stratospheric balloon data from the NASA BARREL mission, providing geographic and magnetic coordinates every 4 seconds. The dataset includes over 50 balloon launches from campaigns in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, designed to study electron precipitation from Earth's radiation belts. Geographic coordinates are sourced from onboard GPS, while magnetic coordinates are derived using the IRBEM library.

Use Cases

• Modeling magnetic field mapping from the stratosphere to the radiation belts based on derived magnetic coordinates.
• Analyzing temporal and spatial patterns of relativistic electron precipitation using the 4-second time-series data.
• Correlating balloon-based X-ray spectrometer measurements with in-situ satellite data from the Van Allen Probes mission.
• Characterizing the spatial scale of electron precipitation events using the multi-balloon array data.

Strengths

• Data is collected at a high temporal resolution of 4 seconds per observation.
• Over 50 stratospheric balloon launches provide multi-year coverage from 2013 to 2016.
• Coordinates are 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 FORTRAN library.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 13:24:38.081181; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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