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

Over 50 stratospheric balloon flights from 2013 to 2016 collected housekeeping data every 40 seconds. The BARREL Mission, a NASA Living with a Star project, measured electron precipitation from Earth's Radiation Belts using X-ray spectrometers and magnetometers. Data was collected from launch sites in Antarctica (Halley Bay, SANAE IV) and Kiruna, Sweden, coordinated with the Van Allen Probes mission.

Use Cases

• Monitoring instrument health and environmental conditions based on voltage, temperature, and current readings
• Studying temporal variations in relativistic electron precipitation based on payload status and X-ray spectrometer data
• Correlating balloon measurements with in-situ plasma wave and particle data from the Van Allen Probes mission
• Characterizing the spatial scale of precipitation events based on data from a constellation of balloons

Strengths

• Data collected from over 50 balloon flights across four campaigns from 2013 to 2016
• Measurements taken at stratospheric altitudes (~30 km) near polar circles
• Coordinated with the Van Allen Probes mission and other ground-based instruments like EISCAT

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

Data collected by instrument payloads on stratospheric balloons launched during the BARREL Mission.

Time Range

2013 to 2016

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:43:39.071652; freshness should be verified

Geography

Antarctica (Halley Bay, SANAE IV) and Kiruna, Sweden