The Tarantula Nebula taken by the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT). Credit: NASA/SuperBIT
And the recovery journey involving a smashed telescope, a cougar scare, and police.
Information from a NASA objective to map dark matter around galaxy clusters has actually been saved by a brand-new healing system designed by scientists at the University of Sydney. The system enabled the retrieval of gigabytes of info, even after communication failed and the balloon-based telescope was damaged in the landing procedure.
Objective Overview
In April, the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) was introduced from Wānaka Airport, New Zealand, suspended under a helium-filled balloon the size of a sports stadium on top of the Earths atmosphere, and floated around the world 5.5 times. It was harmed on landing in southern Argentina the following month.
Internal view of the Data Recovery System. Credit: Sirks et al
. System Importance and First Use
” We could not discover one at first and when we did, there were cougar tracks in the snow near it, so we thought maybe the chicken roast bag was not the finest concept. We did recover them quite easily,” Dr. Sirks stated.
A super pressure balloon partially inflated as its being prepared to launch from Wānaka, New Zealand on April 16, 2023, with the SuperBIT payload. Credits: NASA/Bill Rodman
Information Recovery Success
Independently, two Data Recovery System plans storing more than 200 gigabytes of SuperBITs info descended by parachute and landed securely, consisting of a map of dark matter around galaxies and stunning images of space. Dark matter is an invisible compound that has a mass 6 times greater than routine matter in the universe.
Research Study Details and System Design
A study led by Dr. Ellen Sirks from the University of Sydneys School of Physics, released today in the journal Aerospace, offers directions to build the Data Recovery System she created, and states the mission that demonstrated, for a relatively small expense, researchers can make sure the info they gather can be restored in the worst-case situation.
Internal view of the Data Recovery System. Credit: Sirks et al
. System Importance and First Use
The authors of the study, comprised of a team of worldwide scientists from Australia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Europe, and Taiwan, stated that the very first use of the Data Recovery System pills during a live science objective showed a big success.
” Our telescope got to the point where it was totally damaged, and we lost high bandwidth communications, so not just did the Data Recovery System work; it was truly quite important to the missions success,” Dr. Sirks said.
” When youre dropping something from the sky, in our case from 33 kilometers, theres always an opportunity that something fails, so recovery packages are rather important to keep your information safe.
” This drop plan is something weve been establishing for about 5 years, but just now have we had the ability to evaluate it in its final setup. Its got to the point where NASA wishes to begin producing these bundles for other science missions too, so this was truly our final test to reveal that this system works.”
PhD prospect Ajay Gill from the University of Toronto (left) and Dr Ellen Sirks from the University of Sydney (best) working on a Data Recovery System bundle. Credit: Steve Benton
System Components and Recovery Process
Dr. Sirks stated Data Recovery Systems are made up of small computer systems with SD cards to keep the information, a home-made “discover my phone” satellite link, and parachutes– housed in foam enclosures utilizing daily things such as chicken roasting bags to keep them waterproof.
The story of recovering the packages itself was an objective. Dr. Sirks said the local authorities in the Argentinian countryside helped obtain the packages, given the rough surface where they landed.
” We could not discover one in the beginning and when we did, there were cougar tracks in the snow near it, so we thought maybe the chicken roast bag was not the finest concept. It was quite funny. However we did retrieve them quite quickly,” Dr. Sirks stated.
Data Retrieval Methods in Balloon Missions
In a normal balloon-based mission like NASAs, information is downloaded by satellite, but Dr. Sirks said researchers frequently require line-of-sight communication to download the data quickly, which isnt possible or constantly effective.
Balloon-based observations likewise offer the quality of space telescopes at a fraction of the budget– millions of dollars compared to billions.
” In our case, we were getting a lot information per night that it would simply be incredibly sluggish and costly to recover this information mid-flight,” Dr. Sirks stated.
” At the moment, the most effective method for us to download data is to copy it onto an SD drive and just drop it to Earth which is kind of crazy, however it works well.”
Referral: “Data Downloaded via Parachute from a NASA Super-Pressure Balloon” by Ellen L. Sirks, Richard Massey, Ajay S. Gill, Jason Anderson, Steven J. Benton, Anthony M. Brown, Paul Clark, Joshua English, Spencer W. Everett, Aurelien A. Fraisse, Hugo Franco, John W. Hartley, David Harvey, Bradley Holder, Andrew Hunter, Eric M. Huff, Andrew Hynous, Mathilde Jauzac, William C. Jones, Nikky Joyce, Duncan Kennedy, David Lagattuta, Jason S.-Y. Leung, Lun Li, Stephen Lishman, Thuy Vy T. Luu, Jacqueline E. McCleary, Johanna M. Nagy, C. Barth Netterfield, Emaad Paracha, Robert Purcaru, Susan F. Redmond, Jason D. Rhodes, Andrew Robertson, L. Javier Romualdez, Sarah Roth, Robert Salter, Jürgen Schmoll, Mohamed M. Shaaban, Roger Smith, Russell Smith, Sut Ieng Tam and Georgios N. Vassilakis, 13 November 2023, Aerospace.DOI: 10.3390/ aerospace10110960.
