owering 15 stories above the Antarctic landscape, the white balloon casts a long, dark shadow across the

snow. The ground crew makes final preparations for launch, filling the balloon with helium and securing its cargo. In one fluid motion, the workers free the balloon from the Earth. Rising into the air, it becomes a fading silhouette in a cloudless sky. Meanwhile, millions of kilometers away, the focus of this launch begins its own journey. A gust of high-energy particles blows out of the sun and into the solar system. A few of these particles make a beeline for Earth. The balloon expands in the thin air of the upper atmosphere. The suns warm light charges the solar panels, giving life to the scientific instruments hanging in a box of insulating foam below the balloon. Winds catch the large surface of the balloon like a sail, blowing it along its two-week circumnavigation of Antarctica. Earths magnetic field snatches an electron from the suns outburst and throws it into a turbulent sea of particles that surrounds our planet. Spiraling wildly, the electron follows a suicidal path toward certain destruction. With a burst of light, the electron crashes into the atmosphere. Its fate triggers a spark of electrical current inside one of the scientific instrumentsunveiling new details about how the sun can disturb the delicate cocoon within which our planet resides. This is a new NASA mission called BARREL. In a series of several dozen flights in the Antarctic summers of 2012-13 and 2013-14, BARREL will explore the invisible world of the heavens that affects nearly every component of our modern lives.

1962, Telestar-1 became the first satellite casualty from a solar outburst, short-circuited by the solar wind. A 1989 event triggered a massive power outage in Quebec, affecting millions of residents and costing billions of dollars to repair. The most violent eruptions from the sun in recorded history, if they were to happen today, could do more than $1 trillion in damage to the worlds electronic infrastructure. The potential for these geomagnetic storms to damage systems is greater than [ever], says Brett Anderson, a Dartmouth College graduate student working on BARREL. Almost on a daily basis, our society is putting more and more satellites into space. The more assets we send into space, the more important it becomes to understand space An artists rendition of Earths magnetosphere. Earths magnetosphere protects our planet from charged weather and to be able to predict it. particles that blow out of the sun. The particles can cause damage to satellites and other electronics. Earth has a natural defense from these damaging particles: the magnetosphere, a donut-shaped Its goal is to better understand the dangerous solar ble. Air travel, power grids, satellite television, and blanket wrapped around the planet. Earths magparticles that engulf our planet, especially durcellular networks may seem robust, but they are all netic field directs particlessuch as electrons caring the suns piques of violence. The mission also sensitive to the high-energy particles shot from the ried by the solar windsinto the magnetospheres will break new ground for NASA, which typically sun at a million tons per second. radiation belts, like rainwater flowing into a reserfunds big single space projects, rather than a suite Disturbances in Earths magnetic field act like voir. Without the magnetosphere, harmful solar of smaller, mass-produced payloads. a giant particle accelerator, so some of the parparticles would bombard Earths surface. Were vulnerable to the space environment. ticles end up moving very, very fastalmost at Understanding how these solar particles behave Understanding the dynamics and how that affects the speed of light, says David Smith, professor near Earth is critical. These electrons are part of our technology is becoming more and more imof physics at the University of California, Santa our environment, so wed like to understand what portant for modern society, says physicist Robyn Cruz, and researcher on the BARREL mission. processes influence their presence, their numMillan of Dartmouth College, BARRELs princi[Theyre] very penetrating, and enough of them bers and their energies, says BARREL scientist pal investigator. We need to understand the [dycan do a lot of harm to a person. But they can Michael McCarthy, a professor of physics at the namics] well enough to make better predictions. also harm electronics. University of Washington. The radiation from an intense solar storm Living with a Star shouldnt make you run for a lead umbrella. Solar Into the Radiation Belts Electronics and people have become inseparastorms inflict their most damage electronically. In Despite the impact of solar activity on soci-

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ety, there are still large gaps in our knowledge. A NASA satellite campaign called Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP) will work in tandem with BARREL to expose the interior dynamics of radiation belts. Two identical RBSP satellites will be launched into orbit within the belts in August 2012, measuring the movement and types of particles there. The magnetosphere lies outside Earths atmosphere for most of its length, except near the north and south poles. Electrons spiral within Earths radiation belts in tight or loose loops. Electrons with tighter spirals bounce like ping-pong balls back and forth between the northern and southern hemispheres. The looser the spiral, the more likely the electron will cascade into Earths atmosphere at one of the poles and become a loss. Out in space, all sorts of phenomena will knock an electron into a loose spiral around a magnetic field line, says Smith. It will follow [the field line] right down into the atmosphere and thencrash!it makes gamma rays that we can detect. Accurate models of the radiation belts are crucial in predicting the impact of solar storms. However, they lack a precise input for how quickly particles escape from the radiation belts. This is important information for calculating when its safe to send astronauts through the belts after a solar storm. While the RBSP satellites will measure many processes inside the radiation belts them-

You cant understand where it comes from unless you understand where its going.

selves, they will not detect the loss rate of particles. The satellite can see a certain amount of electrons, says Smith. That could be because those electrons have been out there forever, or that some keep coming in and out. So scientists had to get creative. Just as water flows in and out of reservoirs, particles enter and exit the radiation belts. If researchers can figure out how many electrons leave the belts, they will gain clarity on the number of electrons coming in to replenish the losses. The whole idea is seeing where the radiation belts come from by figuring out how and why [electrons] decay and disappear from the belt, says Smith. You cant understand where it comes from unless you understand where its going. Into the Skies To detect those electron losses, researchers must reach the area where the electrons collide with the atmosphere, high above the poles. Starting in December 2012, BARREL scientists will launch a helium-filled balloon every other day from the South African Antarctic Station (SANAE IV) and the British Antarctic station, Halley Bay. Each balloon will ascend 36 kilometers above the Earthmore than four times the height of Mount Everestto its cruising altitude. There, it will stay aloft for about two weeks. If all goes well, fleets of balloons will circle Antarctica throughout the

The Radiation Belt Storm Probes and the radiation belts surrounding Earth. The twin satellites will orbit through the radiation belts collecting data to better understand the effects of solar activity.

summer months (December through February) in 2012-13 and 2013-14, allowing the team to scan a large area of the southern sky for electron losses. A magic moment will happen each time RBSP and a BARREL payload are on opposite ends of a magnetic field line, says Smith. At that moment, you know that the waves and plasma properties seen by RBSP are causing the electron [losses] you see at BARREL. A 23-kilogram payload the size of a dorm-room mini-refrigerator will dangle from each balloon. Each payload is a self-contained box with an instrument to gauge electron losses. Solar panels attach to each side of the payload, powering the instruments. Inside the payloads hard foam exte-

rior is a scintillator made of sodium iodide, which creates an electrical pulse from each gamma ray it absorbs after an electron loss. A satellite modem complete with its own telephone numberbeams the information back to researchers in the United States. BARREL team members will monitor the status of each payload around the clock to ensure the health of each balloon. If one of them falls too low in the sky or drifts into the flight path of airlines, it gets cut down for safety reasons. A small explosive charge attached to each balloon can be remotely detonated, dropping the payload to the ground. Unless the payloads fall near a research base, theyll remain on the Antarctic ice.

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The goal is for each balloon to drift by the South Atlantic Anomaly, a weak spot in Earths magnetic field that creates a data sweet spot between South America and Africa. The team will take advantage of winds that circulate east-towest around the Antarctic continent. By launching slightly upwind of the South Atlantic Anomaly, each balloon will sail around the South Pole and through the sweet spot for a few days of peak exposure to electron-sparked gamma rays. The radiation belts come down closer to the atmosphere [in the South Atlantic Anomaly] than anywhere else, says Smith. If you go just below it along the Antarctic coast, you can not only see particles that rain down at that point, you can also see particles drifting around from other places in the radiation belt.

Members of the BARREL team and ground crew prepare to launch a research balloon in 2009. The balloons are launched from Antarctica and travel for about two weeks collecting data.

at [the spike]. The more we looked, the more interesting it became. McCarthy took his X-ray data to Jason Foat, a UC Berkeley researcher on the mission, whose gamma-ray data from the same flight filled in the gaps. We put those two pieces of information together and we both saw something at the same timeit was real, McCarthy recalls. It wasnt noise. Because the puzzling spike was isolated, the researchers could study it more easily. They found that it came from an unexpected downpour of energetic electrons. No one had ever seen this before; indeed, no one had thought to look for anything at such high energies. It was an accident that we found this, says McCarthy. We had to figure out more about it. In the years following INTERBOA, several An Unexpected Discovery science missions attempted to better understand One type of loss consists of the very-high-ener- these sudden bursts of electron losses. But not gy electrons, which pose the greatest risk to satel- until ten years later did a group of scientists from lites. Discovering what makes them pour out of across the country, united by common history the radiation belts in abrupt waves is a key focus and passion, assemble a proposal that would beof BARREL. come the forerunner of a new way of thinking at Scientists might never have learned of those NASA. This project grew into BARREL: the Ballosses if not for a lucky accident during a 1996 loon Array for RBSP Relativistic Electron Losses. balloon flight. Michael McCarthy was part of a French campaign called INTERBOA, which flew Rolling Out BARREL balloons carrying scientific instruments 35 kilomeAfter NASA announced the Radiation Belt ters above Scandinavia. At first the campaign saw Storm Probes satellite mission, the agency began no interesting data. Then, something unexpected looking into other projects that could work with happened. the satellites on space-weather physics. Smith and We observed for a brief time this funny little McCarthy had previously done research together noise spike, and that was all we got for several in Antarctica. BARRELs principal, Robyn Millan, days, says McCarthy. We went back and looked had worked with both on her thesis project at UC

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Berkeley. This team already was planning a smaller-budget campaign to learn more about radiation belts. The only way to really get at new information was to have a large number of balloon payloads at the same time, says McCarthy. The RBSP program was a natural fit to make that happen. The more balloons researchers have in the sky at once, the more likely they are to detect pulses of electron losses. If multiple balloons see the same event, the researchers will know how widespread it is. But even though scientists thought their plan was an ideal complement to the RBSP satellites, NASA wasnt looking for balloon proposals. We had to write a letter to allow us to even propose a balloon experiment, says Millan. BARREL and two other proposals made it to NASAs final selection stage. The other two would have to be sent into space, costing more than 10 times as much as BARRELs $9 million budget. In the end, BARREL won out. I wont say they chose us just because we were the cheapest option, but in times of tight budgets it certainly cant hurt, says Smith. According to other researchers, BARREL offered scientific benefits the satellite proposals couldnt match. The BARREL mission provides a vital part of the whole radiation belt picture. The losses it detects are the end result of a whole bunch of processes that happen out in space that the RBSP is going to measure, says Reiner Frie-

del of Los Alamos National Laboratory, an RBSP co-investigator. Were very excited to have this BARREL mission as part of the whole RBSP effort. Its the piece that completes the puzzle. New Thinking, New Challenges With NASAs backing, BARREL was ready to take off. Even with an experienced team, it would not be easy. Balloon experiments typically use six balloons at most. Over its two campaigns, the BARREL mission will use 45. The biggest challenge nowand it is a big challengeis to take a really small team and build this many payloads, says Millan. I think were the very first science project with NASA making so many. Most NASA projects have one or two unique payloads that collect all the data needed; RBSP has two, for example. But the future of research projects is in volume. The team has invented clever new ways to handle mass production. The individual components are shipped from across the country to Dartmouth College. There, team members bolt the components onto the lightweight aluminum frame that forms the inner structure of the payload. Attaching so many components involves a lot of drillingand a lot of broken drill bits. We have this thing called the Jar of Shame, says Anderson. Every time you break a drill bit, you have to put it in the jar and put a tally next to your name.

We had to write a letter to allow us to even propose a balloon experiment.

A payload without its insulating foam exterior. The central frame is made of lightweight and sturdy aluminum. The researchers face major challenges building and testing so many payloads.

Solving the challenges of scientific mass production extends BARRELs importance for NASA beyond the data it will collect. The mission also will test a radical new way of thinking about science campaigns. Were really the first group to take [this] on. This is the wave of the future, says Millan. Our team is paving the way and getting the experience on how to make these multiple copies at a bigger scale.

higher-quality panels put the team back on track. Before the BARREL researchers began mass producing their payloads, they launched three test balloons in 2009 and another two in 2010. The purpose of a test flight is to figure out whats wrong, says McCarthy. You want to see some failures in a test flight so you feel like youre getting somewhere. In the second 2010 test flight, one of the balloons took its payload through some serious trials. From the first moments of flight, it was cast The Little Balloon That Could as a leaker. Everyone thought it would be only One of the biggest challenges is getting the pay- a matter of hours before the balloon would drop load design right. You cant have a problem and too low and need to be cut down. The balloons then multiply that by 45 payloads, says Millan. For are designed to reach an altitude of more than instance, during the first years testing, solar pan36,000 meters. When this balloon peaked at only els melted under the severe temperature changes 34,000 meters, researchers worried something had the balloons undergo. A quick design change and been damaged and the balloon was leaking helium.

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BARREL Timeline
From test flights to full-fledged campaigns, BARREL is a project long in the making. Each night the balloon descended, almost to the brink of uselessness. But every morning for five days straight, the balloon stubbornly rose back up in the Antarctic sky. It was the underdog, says Leslie Woodger, a Dartmouth graduate student working on the mission. It kept proving everyone wrong. Later the scientists came to suspect the balloon never had a leak, but had instead failed to unfold properly when inflated during launch. If the

December 2008

Piggyback Test Campaign

McMurdo Station, Antarctica

December 2009
McMurdo Station, Antarctica

Test Campaign

December 2010
McMurdo Station, Antarctica

August 2012 RBSP Satellites Launch

Test Campaign

December 2012

Halley Research Station, Antarctica SANAE, Antarctica

Main Campaign

December 2013
Halley Research Station, Antarctica SANAE, Antarctica

Main Campaign

balloon doesnt unfold properly, it wont expand and the helium you put in it takes up too much volume; any additional helium gets pushed out the bottom, says Anderson. But there is no way for us to know any of this [for certain]. All you can do is look at the data and try to make up some sort of story that makes sense. Figuring things out like this gets at the heart of what it means to be a scientist. Although the team was pessimistic at first, the

The flight path of The Little Balloon That Could. The balloon surprised experts when it lasted much longer than expected. The balloon was launched from Antarctica and travelled toward Australia.

balloon continued its journey of scientific discovery for five days. The team nicknamed it The Little Balloon That Could. After the fifth day they cut down the balloon, but not because of its altitude. Its unusual flight path led it too close to Australian air traffic, forcing the team to end its remarkable journey. It was launched very early in the season, so the [circumpolar] winds hadnt set up yet, says Millan. Theyre the winds that are supposed to carry the balloon in a circle around the pole, but instead the balloon just started heading north towards Tasmania. As the last test balloon flown, the success of The Little Balloon That Could was a sign that the payload was ready for mass production and wouldnt need another shakedown. If that payload showed us anything, its that a balloon can last for quite a long time, says Anderson. We didnt cut it down because of any failure. It was a great flight. It was very sad to cut it down. It did exactly what it was meant to do. The team is now building payloads en masse to make the December 2012 series of launches. Despite the new challenges of scale, the team is on track to meet the deadline. Its going really well, even though we had to learn a lot of lessons along

Figuring things out like this gets at the heart of what it means to be a scientist.

the way to get to this point, says Millan. For the researchers to accomplish their goals and discover more about the radiation belts, they must do it as a group. Teamwork plays a huge role, and we have a really good team, says Anderson. In reality, you encounter problems. You encounter issues. You encounter the unexpectedbut as a team you rally and you fix them, and you get it to work in the end. As the BARREL collaboration assembles its payloads, the mysterious mayhem of the radiation belts continues far overhead. Its a tale the team hopes wont remain a mystery much longer.

Thomas Sumner wrote this article as his senior thesis in physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was an undergraduate research assistant on the BARREL mission. In September 2012, he will begin graduate training in science journalism at the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication Program.

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Written by Thomas Sumner Advisors: Robert Irion, David Smith Copyright 2012