A stadium sized balloon has successfully launched from Wānaka Airport - after several cancellations.
The super-pressure NASA balloon will travel the Southern Hemisphere’s mid-latitudes for planned missions of 100 days or more.
It's the sixth balloon operation in New Zealand since 2015, with two balloons successfully launched from Wānaka in 2023.
NASA's Debbie Fairbrother says safety was a key priority in getting the balloon launched.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talk sedb Right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
An extraordinary thing happened this week. A balloon the size
of a Rugby stadium was released into the atmosphere from
Warnaica Why we are going to find out next? It
is twenty to ten.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
News Talk Sedby Extra.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I heard that you campaigned hard to be in this show,
that you messaged the creators and audition I did.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
I did. Actually, I was we were filming under the
vines in Queenstown and everyone was auditioning for this show
and I'm like, what is everyone? What is the show?
And there was just this bus and it was a
show called Happiness, and I went, well, I have to
be a part of that, anything that's called happiness, particularly
the way the world is at the moment. And I said,
you know, can I can? I talk to them? And
they went, oh, well, you know, can she sing?
Speaker 5 (00:52):
And I'm like wait a second.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
And I had to go back through all my stuff
and I found this little tape that I did of
a song called Fever that I sang years ago.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
And I went, okay, I want if I.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Can recreate that so literally in the living room of
the place that I was renting in Clyde. I put
on a boombox instrumental to Fever and I sang along
to it into my phone and I sent them that
and said, see I can hold a chune. I'm not
over the world's best seeing it.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
That was a news talk zebby Extra.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You're with the Sunday session. It is twenty to ten.
Speaker 6 (01:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
While pop stars will rocket into space this week, a
very important space project was taking place right here in
New Zealand. NASA has launched a giant super pressure balloon
from Wonca Airport. The balloon will travel above us for
around one hundred days. Super Pressure Project manager at NASA,
Debbie Fairbrother, has been in Wonaica for the launch and
is with us this morning. Good morning, Debbie.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Good morning, Francesca.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Tell us about this balloon. Why has it been launched?
Speaker 6 (01:54):
So NASA is in New Zealand to launch these balloons
to collect science.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
So, as you know, NASA is.
Speaker 6 (02:05):
One of the areas to have science instruments with collaborations
from people worldwide to do their science. So this time
we are in our campaign. We have two balloons. The
first one is up and a lot of people across
New Zealand may have seen it in the skies because
(02:26):
it wanted to hang out over New Zealand for about
two days. And now she's gone off and is flying
to the east. But we have a science instrument on
board this one. It's looking up for the thermospheric winds and
we're also testing out the balloon itself because we have
so many more scientists who want to come and launch
Atawanica in the future.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So why is a balloon the best way to get
this science GIA into space as opposed to a satellite
or something.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
So a satellite well is very effective, is very expensive,
so we using a balloon platu form are relatively low
cost compared to a satellite, and we can do it
in a much quicker timeframe. So sometimes these big satellites
take ten twenty years to develop. Our instrument that we're
(03:22):
flying here, we have flown before from Sweden over to
Northern Canada. They've recovered it, they've refurbished it, and we're
flying it again.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Is it really the size of a Rugby stadium? That's amasive?
Speaker 5 (03:34):
It is.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
When we built the structure, it was about one hundred
and fifty meters long. So when you look at it
up in the sky, even though if you see it
it's just a little tiny white dot, it is when
it's fully inflated, about one hundred and fifteen meters wide
by about seventy meters hot.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So, DEBI, I know you will have thought about this,
but is it safe floating around out there? Is there
anything else?
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Trevors?
Speaker 6 (04:00):
At?
Speaker 5 (04:00):
The height?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Is that is at?
Speaker 5 (04:04):
But where we're at, we're good. Of course, we had
to work with.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
Your equivalent of our FAA, it's called airways to make
sure that before we launched that there was no air
traffic above us or in our path. So we made
sure from a public safety standpoint that we worked with
all the regulators in the country to make sure that
we were safe and y'all were safe.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So about how high is it?
Speaker 5 (04:34):
It is about thirty three kilometers right now, okay?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And will that be as high as it goes or
will it go high on?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Okay, yep.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
And so our intent with this balloon is for it
to stay at about thirty three kilometers. Our standard balloon
that we launch is a thorough vehicle and at night,
when the sun goes down, it would come down in altitude.
And the beauty of this balloon is as long as
we've done it right, it'll stay up at thirty three
kilometers day and night.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
When it comes to the balloon, how specialized does this technology?
Have you been working on this equipment for a long time?
Speaker 6 (05:06):
So the balloon development has been going on for many years.
We first came to Wanica in twenty fifteen. It's hard
to believe that it's been ten years that we've been
coming back to Wantica and we are in the final
stages of qualifying this balloon design. And so then instead
of science being a mission of opportunity with US, it
(05:27):
will become a qualified NASA vehicle and that what that
means is it takes some of our instrumentation that we
have on the balloon out of the equation and that
mass gets allocated back to the science.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Okay, and do you work on that technology here in
New Zealand or was a lot of that being done
in the US.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Most of the work is done in the US.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
We have used a one of our sensors is from
a country or a company here in New Zealand, and
when we're in country, we do work with locals to
help us out with things for the campaign, but the
majority is done back in the US.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Now, why one hundred days? Is that this sort of
standard amount of time to take the measurements unique?
Speaker 5 (06:10):
No, actually our minimum is five.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
But in when this project was started, the kind of
standard length of a balloon was ten days, and so
they wanted, you know, ten times that I will be
ecstatic if we get thirty days or forty days. Really,
mother nature is in charge, so the winds are, you know, zonal. Now,
(06:37):
I think the reason we kind of went around New
Zealand is because of the cyclone that was coming down.
It was messing with the stratosphere, and you know, we'll
be watching every time we come to a landmass to
make sure it's safe to cross in and make a decision,
like we did in twenty three when we were coming
onto Argentina. The I think it was the sixth time around.
(06:58):
It was in a good position to terminate the balloon
because our trajectory was going to take us too far
south towards Antarctica and it was going to it four
days of total darkness and that's not good with our
power system because we have solar panels to recharge our batteries.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Okay, my NIXT question was going to be how do
you get it back down? Do you just turn your
solar panels off to you?
Speaker 6 (07:21):
Well, we send commands to separate the top the balloon
from the parachute, so between the top of the parachute
and the bottom of the balloon, and then that in
turn rips the balloon open. So we'll bring the balloon down,
we'll bring the parachute down with the payload, and we'll
go and recover both.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Why is Wannica so good for a launch such as this?
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Great question?
Speaker 6 (07:44):
Wanica is far enough north from Antarctica that we're getting
the day night cycles, and it's far enough south in
the southern hemisphere that there's not a lot of high
population zones. Like if I were to launch from Alice Springs, Australia,
where we have launched before, you're gonna fly over Rio
San Paolo and a lot of other populated zones which
(08:09):
from a NASA safety standpoint, they wouldn't allow us to.
So we come a little bit further south and it's
kind of the sweet spot. We've often asked our meteorologist
after a campaign, you know, is there in a different
place in New Zealand that would be better, and they're like, no,
we've looked Wonka's ideal for it.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Debbie, as a woman working in space and working for NASA,
there's been quite a lot of space action this week.
Do you have any thoughts on the Blue Origin all
female flight.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
I haven't followed that much.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
I think it's really impressive that you know, there are
the commercial providers there providing these opportunities for the general public,
if you will. But again I really don't follow that stuff.
Our head has been down and focused on our balloon here,
a bit.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
More focused on this rather large balloon. Hey, look, best
of luck with it, Debbie, thank you so much for
your time this morning.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Really appreciated. That was super pressure. Project manager at NASA,
Debbie Fairbrother. They're from
Speaker 1 (09:07):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talk sedb Right.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
An extraordinary thing happened this week. A balloon the size
of a Rugby stadium was released into the atmosphere from
Warnaica Why we are going to find out next? It
is twenty to ten.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
News Talk Sedby Extra.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I heard that you campaigned hard to be in this show,
that you messaged the creators and audition I did.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
I did. Actually, I was we were filming under the
vines in Queenstown and everyone was auditioning for this show
and I'm like, what is everyone? What is the show?
And there was just this bus and it was a
show called Happiness, and I went, well, I have to
be a part of that, anything that's called happiness, particularly
the way the world is at the moment. And I said,
you know, can I can? I talk to them? And
they went, oh, well, you know, can she sing?
Speaker 5 (00:52):
And I'm like wait a second.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
And I had to go back through all my stuff
and I found this little tape that I did of
a song called Fever that I sang years ago.
Speaker 5 (01:03):
And I went, okay, I want if I.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Can recreate that so literally in the living room of
the place that I was renting in Clyde. I put
on a boombox instrumental to Fever and I sang along
to it into my phone and I sent them that
and said, see I can hold a chune. I'm not
over the world's best seeing it.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
That was a news talk zebby Extra.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You're with the Sunday session. It is twenty to ten.
Speaker 6 (01:25):
Right.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
While pop stars will rocket into space this week, a
very important space project was taking place right here in
New Zealand. NASA has launched a giant super pressure balloon
from Wonca Airport. The balloon will travel above us for
around one hundred days. Super Pressure Project manager at NASA,
Debbie Fairbrother, has been in Wonaica for the launch and
is with us this morning. Good morning, Debbie.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
Good morning, Francesca.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Tell us about this balloon. Why has it been launched?
Speaker 6 (01:54):
So NASA is in New Zealand to launch these balloons
to collect science.
Speaker 5 (02:00):
So, as you know, NASA is.
Speaker 6 (02:05):
One of the areas to have science instruments with collaborations
from people worldwide to do their science. So this time
we are in our campaign. We have two balloons. The
first one is up and a lot of people across
New Zealand may have seen it in the skies because
(02:26):
it wanted to hang out over New Zealand for about
two days. And now she's gone off and is flying
to the east. But we have a science instrument on
board this one. It's looking up for the thermospheric winds and
we're also testing out the balloon itself because we have
so many more scientists who want to come and launch
Atawanica in the future.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
So why is a balloon the best way to get
this science GIA into space as opposed to a satellite
or something.
Speaker 6 (02:59):
So a satellite well is very effective, is very expensive,
so we using a balloon platu form are relatively low
cost compared to a satellite, and we can do it
in a much quicker timeframe. So sometimes these big satellites
take ten twenty years to develop. Our instrument that we're
(03:22):
flying here, we have flown before from Sweden over to
Northern Canada. They've recovered it, they've refurbished it, and we're
flying it again.
Speaker 5 (03:30):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Is it really the size of a Rugby stadium? That's amasive?
Speaker 5 (03:34):
It is.
Speaker 6 (03:36):
When we built the structure, it was about one hundred
and fifty meters long. So when you look at it
up in the sky, even though if you see it
it's just a little tiny white dot, it is when
it's fully inflated, about one hundred and fifteen meters wide
by about seventy meters hot.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
So, DEBI, I know you will have thought about this,
but is it safe floating around out there? Is there
anything else?
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Trevors?
Speaker 6 (04:00):
At?
Speaker 5 (04:00):
The height?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Is that is at?
Speaker 5 (04:04):
But where we're at, we're good. Of course, we had
to work with.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
Your equivalent of our FAA, it's called airways to make
sure that before we launched that there was no air
traffic above us or in our path. So we made
sure from a public safety standpoint that we worked with
all the regulators in the country to make sure that
we were safe and y'all were safe.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
So about how high is it?
Speaker 5 (04:34):
It is about thirty three kilometers right now, okay?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And will that be as high as it goes or
will it go high on?
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Yes?
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Okay, yep.
Speaker 6 (04:41):
And so our intent with this balloon is for it
to stay at about thirty three kilometers. Our standard balloon
that we launch is a thorough vehicle and at night,
when the sun goes down, it would come down in altitude.
And the beauty of this balloon is as long as
we've done it right, it'll stay up at thirty three
kilometers day and night.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
When it comes to the balloon, how specialized does this technology?
Have you been working on this equipment for a long time?
Speaker 6 (05:06):
So the balloon development has been going on for many years.
We first came to Wanica in twenty fifteen. It's hard
to believe that it's been ten years that we've been
coming back to Wantica and we are in the final
stages of qualifying this balloon design. And so then instead
of science being a mission of opportunity with US, it
(05:27):
will become a qualified NASA vehicle and that what that
means is it takes some of our instrumentation that we
have on the balloon out of the equation and that
mass gets allocated back to the science.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Okay, and do you work on that technology here in
New Zealand or was a lot of that being done
in the US.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Most of the work is done in the US.
Speaker 6 (05:48):
We have used a one of our sensors is from
a country or a company here in New Zealand, and
when we're in country, we do work with locals to
help us out with things for the campaign, but the
majority is done back in the US.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Now, why one hundred days? Is that this sort of
standard amount of time to take the measurements unique?
Speaker 5 (06:10):
No, actually our minimum is five.
Speaker 6 (06:13):
But in when this project was started, the kind of
standard length of a balloon was ten days, and so
they wanted, you know, ten times that I will be
ecstatic if we get thirty days or forty days. Really,
mother nature is in charge, so the winds are, you know, zonal. Now,
(06:37):
I think the reason we kind of went around New
Zealand is because of the cyclone that was coming down.
It was messing with the stratosphere, and you know, we'll
be watching every time we come to a landmass to
make sure it's safe to cross in and make a decision,
like we did in twenty three when we were coming
onto Argentina. The I think it was the sixth time around.
(06:58):
It was in a good position to terminate the balloon
because our trajectory was going to take us too far
south towards Antarctica and it was going to it four
days of total darkness and that's not good with our
power system because we have solar panels to recharge our batteries.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Okay, my NIXT question was going to be how do
you get it back down? Do you just turn your
solar panels off to you?
Speaker 6 (07:21):
Well, we send commands to separate the top the balloon
from the parachute, so between the top of the parachute
and the bottom of the balloon, and then that in
turn rips the balloon open. So we'll bring the balloon down,
we'll bring the parachute down with the payload, and we'll
go and recover both.
Speaker 5 (07:38):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Why is Wannica so good for a launch such as this?
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Great question?
Speaker 6 (07:44):
Wanica is far enough north from Antarctica that we're getting
the day night cycles, and it's far enough south in
the southern hemisphere that there's not a lot of high
population zones. Like if I were to launch from Alice Springs, Australia,
where we have launched before, you're gonna fly over Rio
San Paolo and a lot of other populated zones which
(08:09):
from a NASA safety standpoint, they wouldn't allow us to.
So we come a little bit further south and it's
kind of the sweet spot. We've often asked our meteorologist
after a campaign, you know, is there in a different
place in New Zealand that would be better, and they're like, no,
we've looked Wonka's ideal for it.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Debbie, as a woman working in space and working for NASA,
there's been quite a lot of space action this week.
Do you have any thoughts on the Blue Origin all
female flight.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
I haven't followed that much.
Speaker 6 (08:38):
I think it's really impressive that you know, there are
the commercial providers there providing these opportunities for the general public,
if you will. But again I really don't follow that stuff.
Our head has been down and focused on our balloon here,
a bit.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
More focused on this rather large balloon. Hey, look, best
of luck with it, Debbie, thank you so much for
your time this morning.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Really appreciated. That was super pressure. Project manager at NASA,
Debbie Fairbrother. They're from
Speaker 1 (09:07):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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