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Transcript
The giant telescope SUNRISE successfully launched
The giant telescope SUNRISE was launched from Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden.
Press images and footage
At 08.05 (local time) this morning, the largest balloon born telescope ever took off from
Swedish Space Corporation’s (SSC) launch facility at Esrange Space Center in northern
Sweden. The balloon, the technical equipment and the gondola weigh around 6 ton all
together and this is by far the heaviest payload ever launched with a balloon from Esrange.
The telescope is now floating at an altitude of …… km and has expanded to 950.000 m3,
which is around 140 meters in diameter. It has just left the Norwegian coast heading for
Canada where it will land in about 4-6 days. The exact landing spot depends on the wind
direction and for how long the flight will last.
Why fly from Esrange Space Center?
The Esrange facility is superbly located for a launch of such a telescope. During the summer,
the stratospheric winds carry the balloon westwards at nearly constant latitude, and under
continuous sunshine. Thus while most conventional balloon flights must be terminated at
sunset, a long-duration flight from Esrange can stay at float for about a week until it reaches
Western Canada. By using ELINK, an SSC Ethernet based telemetry system, the instruments
onboard SUNRISE will be calibrated during the initial phase of the flight. An extra mobile
ground station for ELINK has been mounted at the Norwegian coast to extend the time for
calibration with high bandwidth data. The data from the mobile station is routed over Internet
to Esrange. The communication with SUNRISE will after loss of line of sight data, go through
different satellite systems during the rest of the flight.
“We started the preparations together with the SUNRISE team almost four years ago and it is
very inspiring to see the first European payload of this size take off, says Mr. Lennart
Poromaa, head of Science Services Division at Esrange Space Center. “ We have developed
the ELINK system for payloads and missions like SUNRISE and we look forward to many
more launches of this dignity, with scientific teams from all over the world”.
“During the flight the telescope will observe the sun without interruption thanks to the
midnight sun period”, says Dr. Peter Barthol, project manager for the mission, and adds: “Our
onboard instruments will measure details on the solar surface with an unprecedented spatial
and temporal resolution. The conditions at 37 km float altitude are close to those in space, so
we are not limited in performance by the atmospheric seeing as ground based telescopes
usually are. And we have access to the ultraviolet regime of the solar light, which will give us
new insights into the physics of the Sun. We are so happy about this successful launch and are
eager to get the first scientific data after the instrument check-out phase.
The SUNRISE mission
SUNRISE is an international scientific mission with the objective to study the structure and
dynamics of the solar magnetic field. The scientific teams involved come from the Max
Planck Institute for Solar System Research (PI institution) and the Kiepenheuer Institut for
Sonnenphysik in Germany, the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía and the Instituto de
Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain and the High Altitude Observatory /NCAR in the U.S.. The
scientists have been working together for seven years to make this flight happen.
SUNRISE is also part of the framework of NASA’s LDB (Long Duration Balloon) program.
The Colombia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) has the overall operational responsibility
for the campaign activities and they were supported by a project manager and an operational
team from the Swedish Space Corporation stationed at Esrange.
Read more:
about launch services at Esrange Space Center: http://www.ssc.se/?id=5734
about SUNRISE: http://star.mpae.gwdg.de/Sunrise/
about CSBF: http://www.nsbf.nasa.gov/
For further information please contact
Tomas Hedqvist, operation officer and project leader, Esrange Space Center, SSC
Phone: +46 70 517 20 26
E-mail: [email protected]
or
Dr. Peter Barthol, project manager, The Max Plank Institute, Germany
Phone: +49 172 668 2806
E-mail: [email protected]
or
Johanna Bergstrom-Roos, information manager at Esrange Space Center, SSC
Phone: +46 70 544 60 21
E-mail: [email protected]