Related papers: Attitude determination for balloon-borne experimen…
A cryogenic achromatic half-wave plate (HWP) for submillimetre astronomical polarimetry has been designed, manufactured, tested, and deployed in the Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol). The design…
The Primordial Inflation Polarization ExploreR (PIPER) is a balloon-borne telescope designed to measure the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background on large angular scales. PIPER will map 85% of the sky at 200, 270, 350, and 600 GHz…
The polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be used to search for parity-violating processes like that predicted by a Chern-Simons coupling to a light pseudoscalar field. Such an interaction rotates $E$ modes into $B$…
In this work we describe upgrades to the Spider balloon-borne telescope in preparation for its second flight, currently planned for December 2021. The Spider instrument is optimized to search for a primordial B-mode polarization signature…
We present results from and the analysis of data from MAXIPOL, a balloon-borne experiment designed to measure the polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB). MAXIPOL is the first CMB experiment to obtain results using a rotating…
Gravitational microlensing, when finite size source effects are relevant, provides an unique tool for the study of source star stellar atmospheres through an enhancement of a characteristic polarization signal. This is due to the…
We present results for Vela C obtained during the 2012 flight of the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol). We mapped polarized intensity across almost the entire extent of this giant molecular…
This paper addresses the leader-following attitude consensus problem for a group of spacecraft when at least one follower can access the leader's attitude and velocity relative to the inertial space. A nonlinear distributed observer is…
In the 50 years since the advent of X-ray astronomy there have been many scientific advances due to the development of new experimental techniques for detecting and characterising X-rays. Observations of X-ray polarisation have, however,…
We have developed two redundant daytime star cameras to provide the fine pointing solution for the balloon-borne submillimeter telescope, BLAST. The cameras are capable of providing a reconstructed pointing solution with an absolute…
A particle tracking velocimetry apparatus is presented that is capable of measuring three-dimensional particle trajectories across large volumes, of the order of several meters, during natural snowfall events. Field experiments, aimed at…
The paper presents the design and qualification tests of an airborne experimental setup to determine cosmic ray-flux in the lower stratospheric regions of the earth's atmosphere. The concept of coincidence is implemented to preferentially…
The Atacama B-mode Search (ABS) is an experiment designed to measure cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization at large angular scales ($\ell>40$). It operated from the ACT site at 5190~m elevation in northern Chile at 145 GHz with a…
Optical polarimeters are typically calibrated using measurements of stars with known and stable polarization parameters. However, there is a lack of such stars available across the sky. Many of the currently available standards are not…
This paper discusses the design and the performance achievable with active aerodynamic attitude control in very low Earth orbit, i.e. below 450 km in altitude. A novel real-time algorithm is proposed for selecting the angles of deflection…
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) operated successfully during a 250-hour flight over Antarctica in December 2006 (BLAST06). As part of the calibration and pointing procedures, the red hypergiant star VY CMa…
The SUNRISE balloon-borne solar observatory, consisting of a 1~m aperture telescope that provided a stabilized image to a UV filter imager and an imaging vector polarimeter, carried out its second science flight in June 2013. It provided…
Indian Centre for Space Physics is engaged in studying terrestrial and extra-terrestrial high energy phenomena from meteorological balloon borne platforms. A complete payload system with such balloons is at the most about five kilograms of…
Planck's Cosmic Microwave Background temperature and polarization observations are the premier dataset for constraining cosmological models. Cosmic variance limited temperature at large and intermediate scales today dominates the…
The BESS-Polar Collaboration measured the energy spectra of cosmic-ray protons and helium during two long-duration balloon flights over Antarctica in December 2004 and December 2007, at substantially different levels of solar modulation.…