In-situ exploration of planetary upper atmospheres with balloons ejected from sounding rockets and space probes
Abstract
Balloon missions have been used extensively on Earth to study a large variety of atmospheric characteristics and phenomena. Of primary interest are in situ temperature, pressure and density profiles and wind velocities. The first planetary balloons were flown in the mid 1980s with the Vega 1 and 2 missions to Venus. Since then, balloons have been further developed and planed for, e.g., Mars and Titan. Testing those technologies first on Earth made sense because Earths upper (neutral) atmosphere provides many similarities to Mars atmosphere. The aim of this presentation is to provide a brief overview of the current state in scientific ballooning, and in particular report on the expertise obtained through the MIRIAM (Main Inflated Re-entry Into the Atmosphere Mission Test) Mars balloon near space deployment experiments. The test ballute MIRIAM was flown on board a REXUS 4 sounding rocket from ESRANGE in northern Sweden on October 22nd, 2008. The balloon was deployed at about 140 km altitude. On board were optical instruments, magnetometers, temperature sensors and barometers for atmospheric studies. The data gathered during decent was used to validate inflation, deployment concepts and planetary balloon technologies. Based on those results a new ballute probe MIRIAM-2 is under construction. Its aim is the recording atmospheric parameters which will be then compared to Earth upper atmospheric models. Finally, we address and discuss future prospects for balloon in situ exploration of Mars atmosphere.
- Publication:
-
38th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010cosp...38..856D