Related papers: A Method for Establishing a Station-Keeping, Strat…
High altitude balloons have proved useful for ecological aerial surveys, atmospheric monitoring, and communication relays. However, due to weight and power constraints, there is a need to investigate alternate modes of propulsion to…
The continued exploration of Mars will require a greater number of in-space assets to aid interplanetary communications. Future missions to the surface of Mars may be augmented with stationary satellites that remain overhead at all times as…
The ability to analyze and forecast stratospheric weather conditions is fundamental to addressing climate change. However, our capacity to collect data in the stratosphere is limited by sparsely deployed weather balloons. We propose a…
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,…
This paper addresses the lack of a general methodology for the controller synthesis of an optical instrument on-board a stratospheric balloon-borne platform, such as a telescope or siderostat, to meet pointing requirements that are becoming…
Several commercial telecommunication ventures together with a well funded US military program make it a likely possibility that an autonomous, high-altitude, light-than-air (LTA) vehicle which could maneuver and station-keep for weeks to…
Altitude-controlled balloons hold great promise for performing high-priority scientific investigations of Venus's atmosphere and geological phenomena, including tectonic and volcanic activity, as demonstrated by a number of recent…
For many decades vertical winds have been observed at high altitudes of the Earth's atmosphere, in the mesosphere and thermosphere layers. These observations have been used with a simple one dimensional model to make estimates of possible…
A technique by which a spacecraft can interact with flows of ionized gas in space (the solar wind or interstellar medium) to be accelerated to velocities greater than the wind velocity is explored. Inspired by the dynamic soaring maneuvers…
The "Airships: A New Horizon for Science" study at the Keck Institute for Space Studies investigated the potential of a variety of airships currently operable or under development to serve as observatories and science instrumentation…
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…
Stratospheric balloons offer cost-effective access to space and grant the opportunity for fast scientific innovation cycles and higher-risk explorations. In addition to science pathfinders, they serve as platforms for technology…
Balloon experiments are an economically feasible method of conducting observations in astronomy that are not possible from the ground. The astronomical payload may include a telescope, a detector, and a pointing/stabilization system.…
The ultraviolet (UV) window has been largely unexplored through balloons for astronomy. We discuss here the development of a compact near-UV spectrograph with fiber optics input for balloon ights. It is a modified Czerny-Turner system built…
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"…
We present a method for attaining sub-arcsecond pointing stability during sub- orbital balloon flights, as designed for in the High Altitude Lensing Observatory (HALO) concept. The pointing method presented here has the potential to perform…
We present an efficient technique to study the 1D evolution of instability-generated structure in winds of hot stars out to very large distances (more than 1000 stellar radii). This technique makes use of our previous finding that external…
Catalog maintenance of space objects by limited number of ground-based sensors presents a formidable challenging task to the space community. This article presents a methodology for time-invariant tracking and surveillance of space objects…
Due to the unprecedented signal strengths offered by the newest high-resolution spectrographs on 10-m class telescopes, exploring the 3D nature of exoplanets is possible with an unprecedented level of precision. In this paper, we present a…
Mounting evidence of chemical disequilibria in the Venusian atmosphere has heightened interest in the search for life within the planet's cloud decks. Balloon systems are currently considered to be the superior class of aerial platform for…