High Altitude Balloons as a Platform for Space Radiation Belt Science

The goals of the University of Alberta High Altitude Balloons Program (UA-HAB) are to i) use low cost balloons to address space radiation science, and ii) to utilise the excitement of "space mission" involvement to promote and facilitate the recruitment of undergraduate and graduate students in physics, engineering, and atmospheric sciences to pursue careers in space science and engineering. The University of Alberta High Altitude Balloons (UA-HAB) is a unique opportunity for University of Alberta students (undergraduate and graduate) to engage in the hands-on design, development, build, test and flight of a payload to operate on a high altitude balloon at around 30km altitude. The program development, including formal design and acceptance tests, reports and reviews, mirror those required in the development of an orbital satellite mission. This enables the students to gain a unique insight into how space missions are flown. UA-HAB is a one and half year program that offers a gateway into a high-altitude balloon mission through hands on experience, and builds skills for students who may be attracted to participate in future space missions in their careers. This early education will provide students with the experience necessary to better assess opportunities for pursuing a career in space science. Balloons offer a low-cost alternative to other suborbital platforms which can be used to address radiation belt science goals. In particular, the participants of this program have written grant proposal to secure funds for this project, have launched several 'weather balloon missions', and have designed, built, tested, and launched their particle detector called "Maple Leaf Particle Detector". This detector was focussed on monitoring cosmic rays and space radiation using shielded Geiger tubes, and was flown as one of the payloads from the institutions participating in the High Altitude Student Platform (HASP), organized by the Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Space Consortium (LaSpace), and sponsored by NASA. The HASP platform was launched from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and to an altitude of about 36kilometers with flight durations of 15 to 20 hours using a small volume, low pressure balloon. The main objectives of the program, the challenges involved in developing it, and the major achievements and outcomes will be discussed. Future opportunities for the use of high altitude balloons for solar-terrestrial science, such as the diagnosis of radiation belt loss through the flight of alternative X-ray scintillator payloads, on short duration weather balloon flights will also be discussed. The UA-HAB project is undertaken with the financial support of the Canadian Space Agency.