Related papers: The Sunrise Mission
NASA's suborbital program provides an opportunity to conduct unique science experiments above Earth's atmosphere and is a pipeline for the technology and personnel essential to future space astrophysics, heliophysics, and atmospheric…
The Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy SOFIA will become operational with the next two years. It will be the biggest astronomical airborne observatory ever build, comprising a 3m-class telescope onboard a Boeing 747SP. A suite…
SIMBOL-X is a high energy "mini" satellite class mission that is proposed by a European 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 focal length in…
Solar Orbiter is the first space mission observing the solar plasma both in situ and remotely, from a close distance, in and out of the ecliptic. The ultimate goal is to understand how the Sun produces and controls the heliosphere, filling…
The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) is an EUV solar telescope on board ESA's Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission launched on 2 November 2009. SWAP has a spectral bandpass centered on 17.4 nm and…
The three Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) spacecraft are going to be placed in a triangular formation in an Earth-trailing or Earth-leading orbit. They will be launched together on a single rocket and transferred to that science…
EUSO-Balloon is a pathfinder mission for the Extreme Universe Space Observatory onboard the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM-EUSO). It was launched on the moonless night of the 25$^{th}$ of August 2014 from Timmins, Canada. The flight ended…
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a sub-orbital surveying experiment designed to study the evolutionary history and processes of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and galaxies at…
Micro-X is an X-ray sounding rocket payload that had its first flight on July 22, 2018. The goals of the first flight were to operate a transition edge sensor (TES) X-ray microcalorimeter array in space and take a high-resolution spectrum…
In this chapter, we briefly review the history of X-ray astronomy through its missions. We follow a temporal development, from the first instruments onboard rockets and balloons to the most recent and complex space missions. We intend to…
We have begun a program of high altitude ballooning at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore. Recent advances in balloons as well as in electronics have made possible scientific payloads at costs accessible to university…
Balloon-borne telescopes present unique thermal design challenges which are a combination of those present for both space and ground telescopes. At altitudes of 35-40 km, convection effects are minimal and difficult to characterize.…
We investigate the observation of meteors with video cameras in stratospheric balloons, overcoming tropospheric handicaps like weather and extinction. We have studied the practical implementation of the idea, designed and tested…
Chromospheric jets are plausible agents of energy and mass transport in the solar chromosphere, although their driving mechanisms have not yet been elucidated. Magnetic field measurements are key for distinguishing the driving mechanisms of…
[Abridged] The Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) is the new 64-m dish operated by INAF (Italy). Its active surface will allow us to observe at frequencies of up to 116 GHz. At the moment, three receivers, one per focal position, have been…
The Polarized Instrument for Long-wavelength Observation of the Tenuous interstellar medium (PILOT) is a balloon-borne experiment aiming at measuring the polarized emission of thermal dust at a wavelength of 240 mm (1.2 THz). A first PILOT…
The PoGO mission, including the PoGOLite Pathfinder and PoGO+, aims to provide polarimetric measurements of the Crab system and Cygnus X-1 in the hard X-ray band. Measurements are conducted from a stabilized balloon-borne platform, launched…
Mauve is a low-cost small satellite developed and operated by Blue Skies Space Ltd. The payload features a 13 cm telescope connected with a fibre that feeds into a UV-Vis spectrometer. The detector covers the 200-700 nm range in a single…
The latest and most advanced effort towards a space-based optical cosmic ray detector developed within the Joint Experiment Mission for the Extreme Universe Space Observatory (JEM-EUSO) collaboration was the Extreme Universe Space…
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLAST-Pol) is a suborbital mapping experiment designed to study the role played by magnetic fields in the star formation process. BLAST-Pol is the reconstructed BLAST…