LONGUEUIL, June 13, 2005 – Canada and three partner countries, the U.S., the U.K. and Mexico, are conducting an unusual experiment in the Arctic skies.
Attached to a huge helium balloon flying at 38,000 metres, a 2,000-kg telescope called BLAST (Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimetre Telescope) is staring deep into the sky to study distant stars and galaxies. Launched in Kiruna, Sweden, on June 11, BLAST is expected to fly for six days before reaching Inuvik, on the Beaufort Sea in northern Canada. The two-metre telescope will offer levels of sensitivity and resolution unmatched by any facility on Earth.
“Flying a telescope attached to a balloon is somewhat unusual, but BLAST is a very exciting astronomy mission,” said Dr. Alain Berinstain, Director of Planetary Exploration and Space Astronomy at the Canadian Space Agency. “It allows us to make observations from the upper atmosphere, achieving a quality of measurement that would be impossible from the ground.”
“BLAST will provide a new view of the universe,” said Dr. Barth Netterfield, the Canadian science team leader and professor in the departments of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Toronto. “The mission will shed light on fundamental questions about the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies.” BLAST will identify large numbers of distant star-forming galaxies, study the earliest stages of star and planet formation, and make high-resolution maps of diffuse galactic emission.
Canada has provided the gondola, the pointing control system, the data acquisition system, the flight and ground station software, the power system, and overall system integration. Canadian partners in this project include the University of Toronto (Dr. Barth Netterfield), the University of British Columbia (Dr. Mark Halpern), and AMEC of Port Coquitlam, B.C. Canadian funding was provided by the Canadian Space Agency, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Ontario Innovation Trust, and the University of Toronto.
International partners include the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, the University of Miami, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Cardiff University, and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica of Mexico, with funding from NASA and the U.K.’s Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC).
Technical details about BLAST can be found online at:
http://chile1.physics.upenn.edu/blastpublic/index.shtml
Ongoing launch information can be found at:
http://gimli.physics.utoronto.ca/Kiruna_2005/