BARREL 3C: Balloon Ephemeris and Magnetic Coordinates for Radiation Belt Studies

Over 50 stratospheric balloons launched from Antarctica and Sweden between 2013 and 2016 collected 4-second GPS and derived magnetic coordinates. The BARREL mission, a NASA Living with a Star project, provided the first balloon measurements of relativistic electron precipitation to complement the Van Allen Probes. Data was used to characterize the spatial scale of electron precipitation from Earth's radiation belts.

Use Cases

• Modeling radiation belt electron losses based on balloon-measured precipitation events.
• Correlating magnetic field variations with in-situ satellite measurements based on derived magnetic coordinates.
• Analyzing the spatial and temporal scale of relativistic electron precipitation based on multi-balloon array data.
• Studying magnetospheric processes by mapping balloon geographic coordinates to magnetic local time.

Strengths

• Data collected from over 50 balloon flights across four campaigns from 2013 to 2016.
• Coordinates are recorded at a high temporal resolution of once every 4 seconds.
• Magnetic coordinates are derived using the established IRBEM FORTRAN library.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data files include formats like BIN and PDF, which may require specialized tools for processing.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

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

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 12:14:33.459214; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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