Small Missions

High above the Earth’s North and South Poles, a steady stream of particles escapes from our atmosphere into space. Scientists call this mysterious outflow the “polar wind,” and for almost 60 years, spacecraft have been flying through it as scientists have theorized about its cause. The leading theory was that a planet-wide electric field was drawing those particles up into space. But this so-called ambipolar electric field, if it exists, is so weak that all attempts to measure it have failed – until now.In 2022, scientists traveled to Svalbard, a small archipelago in Norway, to launch a rocket in an attempt to measure Earth’s ambipolar electric field for the first time. This was NASA’s Endurance rocketship mission, and this is its story.To learn more, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/heliophysics/nasa-discovers-long-sought-global-electric-field-on-earth/ ||

Around a different star, Earth may never have developed life at all. So what makes a star friendly to life? We joined two rocket teams as they traveled to the remote Northern Territory of Australia to capture light from our closest stellar neighbors to help reveal the answer. Follow their journey in the 6-part video series High Above Down Under. Episodes released weekly starting June 27, 2023. ||

On Sept. 9, 2021, a sounding rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, carrying a copy of the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, or EVE. This flight was used to calibrate the identical version of EVE that has flown in space since 2010 aboard NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Over the years, the space-based EVE has become degraded by intense sunlight, so scientists fly periodic calibration missions to keep EVE’s measurements sharp. ||

AZURE MissionColorful clouds formed by the release of vapors from the two AZURE rockets allow scientist to measure auroral winds.Credit: NASA/Lee Wingfield || Azure_ampule_release_print.jpg (1024x682) [97.8 KB] || Azure_ampule_release.jpg (2400x1600) [346.6 KB] || Azure_ampule_release_searchweb.png (320x180) [54.6 KB] || Azure_ampule_release_web.png (320x213) [67.1 KB] || Azure_ampule_release_thm.png (80x40) [4.6 KB] ||

NASA Launches Sounding Rockets to Study AuroraMusic credit: Trial by Gresby Race Nash [PRS] from Killer Tracks. || LARGE_MP4-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_large.00745_print.jpg (1024x682) [134.2 KB] || LARGE_MP4-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_large.00745_searchweb.png (320x180) [74.7 KB] || LARGE_MP4-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_large.00745_web.png (320x213) [92.8 KB] || LARGE_MP4-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_large.00745_thm.png (80x40) [5.3 KB] || 12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER.mov (1152x768) [579.8 MB] || PRORES_B-ROLL-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_prores.mov (1280x720) [590.8 MB] || APPLE_TV-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_appletv.m4v (1280x720) [41.0 MB] || NASA_TV-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER.mpeg (1280x720) [280.2 MB] || LARGE_MP4-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_large.mp4 (1152x768) [85.0 MB] || YOUTUBE_HQ-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_youtube_hq.mov (1152x768) [105.8 MB] || LARGE_MP4-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_large.webm (1152x768) [8.9 MB] || APPLE_TV-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_appletv_subtitles.m4v (1280x720) [41.1 MB] || soundingrockets-v14.en_US.srt [1.1 KB] || soundingrockets-v14.en_US.vtt [1.1 KB] || NASA_PODCAST-12598_SoundingRockets_MASTER_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [14.1 MB] ||

For over 40 years, NASA's Sounding Rocket Program has provided critical scientific, technical, and educational contributions to the nation's space program and is one of the most robust, versatile, and cost-effective flight programs at NASA. Sounding rockets carry scientific instruments into space along a parabolic trajectory. Their overall time in space is brief, typically 5-20 minutes, and at lower vehicle speeds for a well-placed scientific experiment. The short time and low vehicle speeds are more than adequate (in some cases they are ideal) to carry out a successful scientific experiments. Furthermore, there are some important regions of space that are too low for satellites and thus sounding rockets provide the only platforms that can carry out measurements in these regions. Go to NASA.gov for the latest sounding rocket news.

NASA’s Black and Diffuse Aurora Science Surveyor (BADASS) sounding rocket mission has completed its testing campaign at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, ahead of its launch. BADASS is a sounding rocket mission – a suborbital rocket that flies scientific instruments into near-Earth space for short, approximately 15-minute flights. BADASS will study so-called “black auroras,” dark patches and stripes that appear within an aurora. Previous research has hinted that they may be formed by electrons going upward escaping back out into space (rather than the absence of any electrons). The visible aurora is formed by an incoming downward stream of electrons. Scientists want to solve the puzzle as to why these patches and stripes form within the visible aurora. From Goddard, the BADASS instruments were delivered to Wallops Flight Facility, where they – along with the entire rocket payload – will be shipped to the Poker Flat Research Range in Fairbanks, Alaska, where the team aims to fly their rocket through black aurora. Onboard instruments will survey the electron populations as they fly through them to understand how and why these black patches and stripes form within the visible aurora. The mission is scheduled for launch no earlier than February 2026. ||

Since its establishment more than 30 years ago, NASA’s Balloon Program has provided high-altitude scientific balloon platforms for scientific and technological investigations, including fundamental scientific discoveries that contribute to our understanding of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. This short video highlights several key discoveries made with NASA's scientific balloons.Visit nasa.gov/scientificballoons to learn more! ||

Explore this infographic to learn more about ComPair and scientific ballooning.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterMachine-readable PDF copy || ComPair_Infographic_Final.jpg (5100x6600) [3.3 MB] || ComPair_Infographic_Final.png (5100x6600) [11.7 MB] || ComPair_Infographic_Final-half.jpg (2550x3300) [1.3 MB] || ComPair_Infographic_Final-half.png (2550x3300) [3.8 MB] ||

Video compiliations of NASA scientists and partners working in the field. Available to download. || Researchers in volcanic regions. Footage from GIFT in Hawaii. || Compilation2-MaunaLoa.00015_print.jpg (1024x576) [166.4 KB] || Compilation2-MaunaLoa.00015_searchweb.png (320x180) [102.7 KB] || Compilation2-MaunaLoa.00015_thm.png (80x40) [7.6 KB] || Compilation2-MaunaLoa.webm (3840x2160) [57.4 MB] || Compilation2-MaunaLoa.mp4 (3840x2160) [1.1 GB] ||

NASA and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, or KASI, are getting ready to test a new way to see the Sun, high over the New Mexico desert. A pearlescent balloon — large enough to hug a football field — is scheduled to take flight no earlier than Aug. 26, 2019, carrying beneath it a solar scope called BITSE. BITSE is a coronagraph, a kind of telescope that blocks the Sun’s bright face in order to reveal its dimmer atmosphere, called the corona. Short for Balloon-borne Investigation of Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the corona, BITSE seeks to explain how the Sun spits out the solar wind. ||

The Primordial Inflation Polarization Explorer (PIPER) is a NASA scientific balloon mission that will fly to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to study twisty patterns of light in the universe’s “baby picture.” This infographic highlights some facts about PIPER’s instruments, capabilities and goals.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight CenterMachine-readable PDF copy || PIPER_Infographic_FINAL_Medium.jpg (1500x1941) [902.2 KB] || PIPER_Infographic_FINAL_Small.jpg (1000x1294) [469.6 KB] || PIPER_Infographic_FINAL.jpg (5100x6600) [6.6 MB] || PIPER_Infographic_FINAL.png (5100x6600) [15.3 MB] || PIPER_Infographic_FINAL_half.jpg (2550x3300) [1.7 MB] || PIPER_Infographic_FINAL_half.png (2550x3300) [6.9 MB] ||

NASA successfully launched a super pressure balloon (SPB) from Wanaka Airport, New Zealand, at 11:35 a.m. Tuesday, May 17, (7:35 p.m. EDT Monday, May 16) on a potentially record-breaking, around-the-world test flight.The balloon flies at an altitude of about 110,000 feet, in a layer of Earth's atmosphere known as the stratosphere.The purpose of the flight is to test and validate the SPB technology with the goal of long-duration flight (100+ days) at mid-latitudes. In addition, the gondola is carrying the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) gamma-ray telescope as a mission of opportunity.Another mission of opportunity is the Carolina Infrasound instrument, a small, 3-kilogram payload with infrasound microphones designed to record acoustic wave field activity in the stratosphere. Developed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, previous balloon flights of the instrument have recorded low-frequency sounds in the stratosphere, some of which are believed to be new to science.As the balloon travels around the Earth, it may be visible from the ground, particularly at sunrise and sunset, to those who live in the southern hemisphere’s mid-latitudes, such as Argentina and South Africa.NASA’s scientific balloons offer low-cost, near-space access for conducting scientific investigations in fields such as astrophysics, heliophysics and atmospheric research.NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia manages the agency’s scientific balloon flight program with 10 to 15 flights each year from launch sites worldwide. Orbital ATK, which operates NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, provides mission planning, engineering services and field operations for NASA’s scientific balloon program. The CSBF team has launched more than 1,700 scientific balloons in the over 35 years of operation.Track the flight's progress in real-time here. ||

Since its establishment more than 30 years ago, the NASA Balloon Program has provided high-altitude scientific balloon platforms for scientific and technological investigations, including fundamental scientific discoveries that contribute to our understanding of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. Balloons have been used for decades to conduct scientific studies. They can be launched from locations across the globe and are a low-cost method to carry payloads with instruments that conduct scientific observations. The primary objective of the NASA Balloon Program is to provide high altitude scientific balloon platforms for scientific and technological investigations. These investigations include fundamental scientific discoveries that contribute to our understanding of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe. Scientific balloons also provide a platform for the demonstration of promising new instrument and spacecraft technologies that enable or enhance the objectives for the Science Mission Directorate Strategic Plan.

BurstCube is a mission under development at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This CubeSat will detect short gamma-ray bursts, which are important sources for gravitational wave discoveries and multimessenger astronomy. The satellite is expected to launch in 2023. ||

NASA’s Artemis missions are returning humanity to the Moon and beginning a new era of lunar exploration. This year, the agency plans to launch the Artemis I mission, an uncrewed test flight that will take a human-rated spacecraft farther than any before. ||

A coronal mass ejection (CME) erupts from the Sun and sends Type II radio bursts ahead of it. SunRISE measures the radio bursts and transmits the data to NASA’s Deep Space Network. Type II radio bursts are the earliest indicators of shocks from a solar eruption and can provide information on solar energetic particle (SEP) events. || SUNRISE-shot1_v06_4k_30fps_ProRes422.00240_print.jpg (1024x576) [172.5 KB] || SUNRISE-shot1_v06_4k_30fps_ProRes422.00240_searchweb.png (320x180) [87.2 KB] || SUNRISE-shot1_v06_4k_30fps_ProRes422.00240_thm.png (80x40) [5.9 KB] || SUNRISE-shot1_v06_4k_30fps_ProRes422.mov (3840x2160) [695.8 MB] || SUNRISE-shot1_v06_4k_30fps_h264.mp4 (3840x2160) [13.7 MB] || SUNRISE-shot1_v06_4k (3840x2160) [32.0 KB] || SUNRISE-shot1_v06_4k_30fps_ProRes422.webm (3840x2160) [5.3 MB] ||

Music: Charming Noise by Adrien Sahuc [SACEM], Benjamin Sahuc [SACEM]Complete transcript available. || Screen_Shot_2018-05-14_at_5.20.10_PM.png (1536x858) [868.8 KB] || Screen_Shot_2018-05-14_at_5.20.10_PM_print.jpg (1024x572) [51.8 KB] || Screen_Shot_2018-05-14_at_5.20.10_PM_searchweb.png (320x180) [39.5 KB] || Screen_Shot_2018-05-14_at_5.20.10_PM_thm.png (80x40) [3.9 KB] || 12957_IceCube.webm (960x540) [31.6 MB] || 12957_IceCube_large.mp4 (1920x1080) [80.1 MB] || 12957_IceCube.en_US.srt [1.2 KB] || 12957_IceCube.en_US.vtt [1.2 KB] || YOUTUBE_1080_12957_IceCube_youtube_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [127.0 MB] || a012957_IceCubeviz_textfree.mov (1920x1080) [2.1 GB] || during-a-year-in-orbit-icecube-created-a-new-map-of-earths-clouds.hwshow [365 bytes] ||

CubeSats are a class of nanosatellites that use a standard size and form factor. The standard CubeSat size uses a "one unit" or "1U" measuring 10x10x10 cms and is extendable to larger sizes; 1.5, 2, 3, 6, and even 12U. Originally developed in 1999 by California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) and Stanford University to provide a platform for education and space exploration. The development of CubeSats has advanced into it's own industry with government, industry and academia collaborating for ever increasing capabilities. CubeSats now provide a cost effective platform for science investigations, new technology demonstrations and advanced mission concepts using constellations, swarms disaggregated systems.