BARREL 2I: Balloon Housekeeping Voltage, Temperature, Current, and Status

Over 50 stratospheric balloons were launched across four campaigns from 2013 to 2016. The BARREL mission, a NASA Living with a Star Mission of Opportunity, collected housekeeping voltage, temperature, current, and payload status values every 40 seconds to study electron precipitation from Earth's radiation belts. Observations were made from Antarctic and Swedish launch sites at stratospheric altitudes around 30 km.

Use Cases

• Monitoring instrument health and environmental conditions based on voltage and temperature readings.
• Analyzing temporal patterns of electron precipitation events based on payload status and correlated sensor data.
• Studying spatial scales of relativistic electron precipitation using data from a distributed balloon array.
• Correlating balloon measurements with in-situ plasma wave and particle data from the Van Allen Probes mission.

Strengths

• Data collected from over 50 balloon launches across four campaigns from 2013 to 2016.
• Measurements were taken at stratospheric altitudes of about 30 km, providing a unique observational perspective.
• The balloon constellation was designed as an evolving array spread across about six hours of magnetic local time.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The analog sensor data are based on a nominal layout; some payloads may have small differences not reflected.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data collected by instruments on stratospheric balloons launched from Antarctic and Swedish bases.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:53:07.638677; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Launch sites in Antarctica (Halley Bay, SANAE IV) and Sweden (Esrange Space Center, Kiruna).