Published: March 22, 2008 01:54 am            

CSBF employees celebrate successes

PALESTINE — With three successful balloon launches in December alone, 2007 was certainly a year worthy of celebration for employees of Palestine’s NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility.

With that celebration came recognition of the CSBF employees’ hard work during the facility’s annual awards ceremony held March 13 at Shelton Gin in Palestine.

“We hold an awards ceremony every year, usually consisting of a catered lunch at the facility,” CSBF Operations Manager Danny Ball explained, “but because of the success we enjoyed in Antarctica this year, we decided to do something special.”

The bulk of the awards ceremony was spent celebrating the CSBF’s incredible successes in Antarctica with the BESS, ATIC and CREAM launches.

“Our 2007-08 Antarctic Long Duration Balloon Campaign was probably the most successful operational campaign in the facility’s history,” Ball said. “Comprehensive mission objectives for all three experiments were met and/or exceeded, and the three payloads were launched in record time — in just a little over seven days.”

On its third flight, the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM) instrument investigated ultra high energy cosmic rays over the elemental range from protons to iron. It was launched from Antarctica Dec. 19.

The second payload monitored by the CSBF was the Balloon-borne Experiment with a Superconducting Spectrometer (BESS). The instrument, launched Dec. 22, is a project of the University of Tokyo in Japan.

Launched as a project of Louisiana State University Dec. 26 was the Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter (ATIC), which measures the energy and charge of high-energy cosmic rays that strike a carbon target above the calorimeter.

“With those three projects, CSBF launched a total of 32,000 pounds of hardware including the heaviest experiment ever launched from Antarctica, weighing 6,700 pounds,” Ball said. “We obtained a cumulative flight duration of 79 days in near space for the three payloads — another record.

“All three balloons completed one circumnavigation of Antarctica and were on their second trip around,” he added. “That is something that’s never been done before.”

Also Ball explained, payload damage following impact was held to a bare minimum as all three parachutes separated successfully thanks to two new flight systems designed to reduce parachute opening shock and automatically separate the parachute to prevent dragging after impact.

One of those systems, called “ripstitch” gained CSBF employee Erich Klein some recognition at the March 13 ceremony.

“Ripstitch is a mechanical device implemented this year which greatly reduces parachute opening shock at the end of the flight,” Ball said. “The ripstitch system performed flawlessly and will eliminate a problem we’ve had for 30 years.”

At one point, the CSBF had the three experiments up along with a fourth “Pathfinder” balloon designed to characterize the stratospheric wind circulation.

“We’ve never had four balloons up simultaneously before,” Ball said. “NASA is very pleased with our performance this year, so a celebration seemed appropriate.”

Years of service awards were presented at the program.

CSBF Service Award recipients included: five years, Paul Brasfield and Michelle Johnson; 15 years, Bryan Stillwell; 20 years, Erich Klein, John Rosier and Kathleen Smith; and 25 years, Mark Cobble, James DePue and Keith Parkes.

Physical Science Laboratories (PSL) 20 Year Service Award recipients included: Danny Ball, Carolyn Booker, Mark Cobble, Mitchell Coleman, Joyce Dancer, Victor Davison, James DePue, Gerald Gregg, Scott Hadley, Shirley Howarton, Erich Klein, Gary Marchant, MaryEllen Mosley, Keith Parkes, Robert Perrin, Judy Reynolds, John Rosier, James Rotter and Kathleen Smith.

Representatives from Aerostar International Inc., the company that makes the balloons, were recognized during the ceremony as well as special guests, president-elect of the Palestine Area Chamber of Commerce Dan Bochsler, Chamber president Mike Johnston and Palestine Herald-Press publisher Gary Connor.

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Mary Rainwater may be reached via e-mail at mrainwater@palestineherald.com

        

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