 BRRISON prior to launch | |
| Location(s) | United States |
|---|---|
| Telescope style | balloon-borne telescope optical telescope  |
 Related media on Wikimedia Commons | |
The Balloon Rapid Response for ISON (BRRISON) was a NASA project involving a stratospheric balloon with science instruments intended to study comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) and other celestial objects.
The balloon featured an azimuth and attitude stabilized gondola carrying an 80-centimeter (31 in) telescope and two instruments on separate optical benches. [1] [2] The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory contributed the BRRISON Infrared Camera (BIRC) for detecting water and carbon dioxide at 2.5 to 5 μm . [1] [3] The Southwest Research Institute provided the Ultraviolet-Visible light camera (UVVis) with a fine steering mirror to detect hydroxyl (308 nm) and cyanogen (385 nm) emissions. [1] [3] To save time, both the telescope and gondola avionics were refurbished from JHU/APL's Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory mission. [4] [5] The BRRISON payload was intended to operate at 36,600 meters (120,000 ft) for up to 22 hours. [6] The mission cost US$10.2 million, excluding the balloon and NASA personnel expenses, [4] and progressed from concept to launch pad in ten months. [6]
While Comet ISON was the primary target, this mission also planned to observe other objects, including comet 2P/Encke, Jupiter and its moons, the Mizar star system, Earth's Moon, and asteroids 10 Hygiea and 130 Elektra. [7] Another goal was to measure Earth's atmospheric transmission and emission using BIRC and atmospheric turbulence using UVVis. [8]
The balloon was launched from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on 28 September 2013 at 18:10 MDT (29 September 2013 at 00:10 UTC). [5] [7] However, about two and a half hours after launch, [9] a communication interruption between hardware caused the telescope to return to its stowed position too rapidly, resulting in the stow bar being trapped. [10] Team members worked to fix the problem, but the telescope was unable to be redeployed. [9] The decision was made to keep the balloon afloat until it reached a safe location for mission termination, which occurred on 29 September at 06:04 MDT (12:04 UTC). [5] The gondola and its payload was released under parachute and recovered near Spur, Texas, [5] in "excellent condition". [11] The hardware may be reused on future balloon missions. [12]
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