BARREL 4C: Balloon Housekeeping Voltage, Temperature, Current, and Status

BARREL 4C Data Processing Unit Level 2 data provides housekeeping voltage, temperature, current, and payload status values recorded every 40 seconds. The BARREL Mission was a NASA Living with a Star Mission of Opportunity, launching over 50 stratospheric balloons from Antarctica and Sweden between 2013 and 2016 to study electron precipitation from Earth's Radiation Belts. This dataset is hosted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Use Cases

• Monitoring instrument health and performance based on voltage, temperature, and current readings
• Analyzing temporal patterns of payload status events at a 40-second resolution
• Correlating balloon-based X-ray spectrometer measurements with in-situ plasma wave data from the Van Allen Probes
• Characterizing the spatial scale of relativistic electron precipitation events

Strengths

• Data is collected at a consistent 40-second cadence
• Over 50 balloon payloads were launched across four campaigns from 2013 to 2016
• Mission was designed in coordination with the Van Allen Probes and other ground-based instruments

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 description notes some payload sensor layouts may differ from the nominal layout presented

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data collected from housekeeping sensors on BARREL stratospheric balloons.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:33:04.907350; freshness should be verified

Geography

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