page_title: Superpressure balloon
section_title: Applications
hierarchical_section_title: Superpressure balloon / Applications
caption_attribution_description: English: NASA successfully launched a super pressure balloon from Wanaka Airport, New Zealand, on Tuesday, May 17, on a potentially record-breaking, around-the-world test flight! The purpose of the flight is to test and validate the super pressure balloon technology with the goal of long-duration flight (100+ days) at mid-latitudes. In addition, the gondola is carrying the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) gamma-ray telescope as a mission of opportunity. Two hours and 8 minutes after lift-off, the 532,000-cubic-meter (18.8-million-cubic-foot) balloon reached its operational float altitude of 33.5 kilometers (110,000 feet) flying a trajectory taking it initially westward through southern Australia before entering into the eastward flowing winter stratospheric cyclone. NASA estimates the balloon will circumnavigate the globe about the southern hemisphere’s mid-latitudes once every one to three weeks, depending on wind speeds in the stratosphere. Read more: NASA Super Pressure Balloon Begins Globetrotting Journey
context_page_description: A superpressure balloon is a style of aerostatic balloon where the volume of the balloon is kept relatively constant in the face of changes in ambient pressure outside the balloon, and the temperature of the contained lifting gas. This allows the balloon to keep a stable altitude for long periods. This is in contrast with much more common variable-volume balloons, which are either only partially filled with lifting gas, or made with more elastic materials. Also referred to as pumpkin or Ultra Long Distance Balloons balloons, the sealed balloon envelopes have a pumpkin shape at flight altitude.
  In a variable-volume balloon, the volume of the lifting gas changes due to heating and cooling in the diurnal cycle. The cycle is magnified by a greenhouse effect inside the balloon, while the surrounding atmospheric gas is subject to a much more limited cyclical temperature change. As the lift gas heats and expands, the displacement of atmospheric gas increases, while the balloon weight remains constant. Its buoyancy increases, and this leads to a rise in altitude unless it is compensated by venting gas. Conversely, if the balloon cools and drops, it becomes necessary to release ballast.
context_section_description: Superpressure balloons (SPB) are typically used for extremely long duration flights of unmanned scientific experiments in the upper atmosphere, where atmospheric gas temperature is quite stable through the diurnal cycle. In 1985, such balloons were used for aerobots flying at an altitude of approximately 50 kilometres (160,000 ft) in the atmosphere of Venus, in the international, Soviet-led Vega program. 
  In February 1974, Colonel Thomas L. Gatch Jr, USAR attempted to make the first crossing of the Atlantic by balloon in a superpressure balloon named Light Heart. Following the loss of at least two of the ten balloons which provided lift, and after deviating substantially from the course that Colonel Gatch had plotted to take advantage of the jet stream, the last reported sighting of the Light Heart was 1,610 kilometres (1,000 mi) west of the Canary Islands; no further trace of the aircraft was ever found.
  In March 2015, NASA launched a SPB to an altitude of 110,000 feet (34,000 m) for 32 days from New Zealand and landed in Australia after a leak was detected. This was the first time a SPB was flown for a long duration through the day and night cycle. When fully inflated, it was the size of a football stadium.
  Google's Project Loon uses superpressure balloons to achieve flights of over 200 days.
  The SPB TRAVALB-2 surpassed previous Antarctic balloon flights by staying aloft for 149 Days, 3 hours, and 58 minutes after launch from the NASA Long Duration Balloon (LDB) site at LDB Camp, McMurdo Station, Antarctica.  The operation was supported by  National Science Foundation and United States Antarctic Program.    After the Travalb-1 launch abort, the Travalb-2 lifted off on 29 December 2019 to test NASA balloon trajectory predictions in Antarctica and to study electron loses from Earth's radiation belts.
caption: NASA Super Pressure Balloon Wanaka Airport, New Zealand
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