August 30, 2002

NASA Scientific Balloon Sets World Record

Slowly rising from the Northwest region of Manitoba, Canada, near a small gold-mining town called Lynn Lake, a massive NASA balloon began a journey August 25 that took it to the fringes of space. Silently drifting in the rarefied upper edges of our atmosphere, the scientific balloon reached a peak altitude of 161,000 feet (49 kilometers), and with a volume of 60 million cubic feet (1.7 million cubic meters), was the largest balloon ever launched successfully.

The balloon carried a solar and heliosphere experiment called Low Energy Electrons (LEE), weighing 1,500 pounds (690 kg) that was provided by Dr. Paul Evenson of the University of Delaware, Newark.

"Aside from our excitement and the fact that this balloon established a new record for balloon volume (50 percent greater than NASA's standard balloon designs), this flight should help establish a new platform for science such as ultra-violet and x-ray astronomy," said Steve Smith, chief of NASA's Balloon Program Office at Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va.

For more on the record setting Balloon, go to: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/news-
release/releases/2002/h02-163.htm

NASA 's Mission:
*To understand and protect our home planet
*To explore the Universe and search for life
*To inspire the next generation of explorers
…as only NASA can

For a further details of the NASA mission, go to: http://www.nasa.gov/bios/vision.html

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