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The Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Sub-millimetre Telescope (BLAST) will operate on a Long Duration Balloon platform with large format bolometer arrays at 250, 350 and 500 microns, initially using a 2m mirror, with plans to increase to 2.5m.…
We have observed cosmic-ray electrons from 10 GeV to 800 GeV by a long duration balloon flight using Polar Patrol Balloon (PPB) in Antarctica. The observation was carried out for 13 days at an average altitude of 35 km in January 2004. The…
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…
We present the results of the first high-altitude balloon flight test of a concept for an advanced Compton telescope making use of modern scintillator materials with silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) readouts. There is a need in the fields of…
The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) is a balloon-borne experiment designed to measure the composition and energy spectra of cosmic rays of charge Z = 1 to 26 up to an energy of ~ 10^15 eV. CREAM had two successful flights on…
The B-mode Foreground Experiment (BFORE) is a proposed NASA balloon project designed to make optimal use of the sub-orbital platform by concentrating on three dust foreground bands (270, 350, and 600 GHz) that complement ground-based cosmic…
We report on the design and estimated performance of a balloon-borne hard X-ray polarimeter called HX-POL. The experiment uses a combination of Si and Cadmium Zinc Telluride detectors to measure the polarization of 50 keV-400 keV X-rays…
The Earth possesses many environmental extremes that mimic conditions on extraterrestrial worlds. The stratosphere at 30-40 km altitude closely resembles the surface of Mars in terms of pressure, temperature, and radiation levels (UV,…
Astrophysics experiments by Falcon et al. to create white dwarf photospheres in the laboratory are currently underway. The experimental platform measures Balmer line profiles of a radiation-driven, pure hydrogen plasma in emission and in…
X-Calibur is a balloon-borne telescope that measures the polarization of high-energy X-rays in the 15--50keV energy range. The instrument makes use of the fact that X-rays scatter preferentially perpendicular to the polarization direction.…
During certain times of the year at middle and low latitudes, winds in the upper stratosphere move in nearly the opposite direction than the wind in the lower stratosphere. Here we present a method for maintaining a high-altitude balloon…
We present the first linear polarization measurements from the 2015 long-duration balloon flight of SPIDER, an experiment designed to map the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) on degree angular scales. Results from these…
The atmospheric secondary antiproton flux is studied for detection altitudes extending from sea level up to about 3 earth radii, by means of a 3-dimensional Monte-Carlo simulation, successfully applied previously on other satellite and…
MAXIMA and BOOMERanG are balloon borne experiments designed to map the cosmic microwave background anisotropy power spectrum from l=10 to l=900 with high resolution. Here we describe the program of observations, the experiments, their…
Sensitive wide-field observations of polarized thermal emission from interstellar dust grains will allow astronomers to address key outstanding questions about the life cycle of matter and energy driving the formation of stars and the…
The potential detection of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus has reignited interest in the possibility of life aloft in this environment. If the cloud decks of Venus are indeed an abode of life, it should reside in the "habitable zone"…
Layer clouds are abundant in the Earth's atmosphere. Such clouds do not become sufficiently strongly charged to generate lightning, but they show weak charging along the upper and lower cloud boundaries where there is a conductivity…
We report on the prototyping of a plastic scintillator hodoscope with wavelength-shifting fibre read-out by a multi-anode photomultiplier as part of the development of a detector for cosmic ray muons to be carried aboard an aircraft. Light…
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…
Measuring the muon flux is important to the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake, for which several low background experiments are being planned. The nearly-vertical cosmic ray muon flux was measured in three locations at this…