BARREL 2L: Balloon Housekeeping Voltage, Temperature, Current, and Payload Status

Antarctic and Arctic stratospheric balloon campaigns from 2013 to 2016 collected housekeeping data for the BARREL mission. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration provided voltage, temperature, current, and payload status values sampled every 40 seconds. This data supported a NASA Living with a Star Mission of Opportunity to study electron losses from Earth's Radiation Belts.

Use Cases

• Correlating electron precipitation events with payload status based on housekeeping data
• Analyzing temporal variations in balloon instrumentation based on 40-second sampling
• Studying spatial scales of precipitation by mapping data from balloon arrays across magnetic local time
• Validating in-situ measurements from the Van Allen Probes mission using balloon-based observations

Strengths

• Data collected from over 50 stratospheric balloon launches across four campaigns
• Sampled at a consistent 40-second interval for housekeeping parameters
• Coordinated with multiple ground and space-based instruments like the Van Allen Probes and EISCAT radar

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• The description notes analog sensor data are based on a nominal layout, and some payloads may have small differences not reflected
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Measured by instrumentation on BARREL balloons, including X-ray spectrometers and DC magnetometers.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:48:58.030071; freshness should be verified

Geography

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