May 9 2005
From The Space Library
NASA launched a 40 million-cubic-foot (12.2 million-cubic-meter) balloon, the Deep Space Test Bed facility, from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, carrying an automobile-sized aluminum gondola containing scientific experiments prepared by university and elementary school students. NASA had collaborated with the students to carry out research to analyze characteristics of Earth's atmosphere from the unique laboratory traveling 30 miles (48.3 kilometers) above Earth. The primary payload was the High Energy Replicated Optics (HERO), a hard x-ray-focusing telescope. Engineers from NASA's MSFC had designed HERO to create images from high-energy x-ray light. Undergraduate students from Pennsylvania State University, Montana State University, the University of Alabama, and Auburn University in Alabama had prepared experiments for the new laboratory. The experiments would identify pollution-related aerosols in the atmosphere, measure radiation and its impact on the integrity and behavior of the balloon, measure the external temperature of the balloon material, and gather magnetic-field data. Students from eight grade schools had prepared experiments to observe the effect of the flight environment on microscopic organisms and seeds, placing their experiments in brick-size plastic containers inside two large containers on board the balloon. (NASA, “NASA and Students Partner for High Altitude Research,” news release 05-121, 11 May 2005, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2005/may/HQ_05121_Student_Experiments.html (accessed 14 September 2009).)
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