BARREL 5A: Balloon Ephemeris Data for Radiation Belt Studies

The BARREL mission conducted balloon campaigns from 2013 to 2016, launching over 50 stratospheric balloons from Antarctica and Sweden. This Level 2 dataset provides geographic and magnetic coordinates, including balloon epoch time, latitude, longitude, and altitude, returned from the payload every 4 seconds. Geographic coordinates were obtained from onboard GPS, while magnetic coordinates were derived using the IRBEM library.

Use Cases

• Analyze electron precipitation spatial scales based on balloon array measurements across magnetic local time
• Correlate relativistic electron precipitation events with in-situ plasma wave and particle measurements from the Van Allen Probes mission
• Study ULF-timescale magnetic field variations based on DC magnetometer data from stratospheric balloons
• Map balloon trajectories and magnetic coordinates for radiation belt modeling using derived GPS and IRBEM data

Strengths

• Data collected from over 50 balloon launches across four campaigns spanning 2013 to 2016
• Coordinates are provided at a high temporal resolution of 4 seconds
• Mission was designed to coordinate with comprehensive in-situ measurements from the Van Allen Probes

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data returned from balloon payloads equipped with GPS and magnetometers, processed using the IRBEM library.

Time Range

2013 to 2016

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:30:58.165928; freshness should be verified

Geography

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