Related papers: The Sunrise Mission
We present the thermal model of the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol). This instrument was successfully flown in two circumpolar flights from McMurdo, Antarctica in 2010 and 2012. During these…
I present an overview of the Swift mission, which was launched on November 20, 2004 to discover and observe the most energetic of astrophysical phenomena, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). After almost 6 years in space the Observatory is in…
The XL-Calibur balloon-borne hard X-ray polarimetry mission comprises a Compton-scattering polarimeter placed at the focal point of an X-ray mirror. The polarimeter is housed within a BGO anticoincidence shield, which is needed to mitigate…
BFORE is a high-altitude ultra-long-duration balloon mission to map the cosmic microwave background (CMB). During a 28-day mid-latitude flight launched from Wanaka, New Zealand, the instrument will map half the sky to improve measurements…
Micro-X is a sounding rocket-borne instrument that uses a microcalorimeter array to perform high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy. This instrument flew for the first time on July 22nd, 2018 from the White Sands Missile Range, USA. This flight…
An X-ray Interferometer (XRI) has recently been proposed as a theme for ESA's Voyage 2050 planning cycle, with the eventual goal to observe the X-ray sky with an unprecedented angular resolution better than 1 micro arcsec (5 prad) [1]. A…
The Micro-X sounding rocket is a NASA funded X-ray telescope payload that completed its first flight on July 22, 2018. This event marked the first operation of Transition Edge Sensors (TESs) and their SQUID-based multiplexing readout system…
The second Miniature X-ray Solar Spectrometer (MinXSS-2) CubeSat, which begins its flight in late 2018, builds on the success of MinXSS-1, which flew from 2016-05-16 to 2017-05-06. The science instrument is more advanced -- now capable of…
PoGOLite is a hard X-ray polarimeter operating in the 25-100 keV energy band. The instrument design is optimised for the observation of compact astrophysical sources. Observations are conducted from a stabilised stratospheric balloon…
This chapter describes the SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) mission, currently under development as a joint project of the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. SMILE aims to study the solar…
The high Antarctic plateau provides exceptional conditions for conducting infrared observations of the cosmos on account of the cold, dry and stable atmosphere above the ice surface. This paper describes the scientific goals behind the…
EUSO-SPB1 was released on April 24th, 2017, from the NASA balloon launch site in Wanaka (New Zealand) and landed on the South Pacific Ocean on May 7th. The data collected by the instruments onboard the balloon were analyzed to search UV…
SkyMapper is amongst the first of a new generation of dedicated, wide-field survey telescopes. The 1.3m SkyMapper telescope features a 5.7 square degree field-of-view Cassegrain imager and will see first light in late 2007. The primary goal…
The ComPair balloon instrument is a prototype gamma-ray telescope that aims to further develop technology for observing the gamma-ray sky in the MeV regime. ComPair combines four detector subsystems to enable parallel Compton scattering and…
We study the ascent of granular-sized magnetic bubbles from the solar photosphere through the chromosphere into the transition region and above, for the first time. Such events occurred in a flux emerging region in NOAA 11850 on September…
PILOT (the Pathfinder for an International Large Optical Telescope) is a proposed 2.5 m optical/infrared telescope to be located at Dome C on the Antarctic plateau. Conditions at Dome C are known to be exceptional for astronomy. The seeing…
The Solar Close Observations and Proximity Experiments (SCOPE) mission will send a spacecraft into the solar atmosphere at a low altitude of just 5 R_sun from the solar center. It aims to elucidate the mechanisms behind solar eruptions and…
The NINA apparatus, on board the Russian satellite Resurs-01 n.4, has been in polar orbit since 1998 July 10, at an altitude of 840 km. Its main scientific task is to study the galactic, solar and anomalous components of cosmic rays in the…
SIMBOL-X is a high energy "mini" satellite class mission that is proposed by a French-Italian-English collaboration for a launch in 2009. SIMBOL-X is making use of a classical X-ray mirror, of ~ 600 cm2 maximum effective area, with a 30 m…
The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has recently concluded a set of engineering flights for Observatory performance evaluation. These in-flight opportunities are viewed as a first comprehensive assessment of the…