Notes from the Field

While everyone waits for the ball to drop in Times Square, scientists are working to send balloons up in Antarctica.

Scientists in Antarctica launched a balloon-borne instrument to help them find out how the solar system was made.

CYGNSS was launched on December 15, 2016 at 13:27:21 UTC and today marks the completion of its third year on orbit. Much has happened in that time and the future looks very promising, with all eight microsatellites healthy and operating continuously in their nominal science data-taking mode. Year 1 was spent on engineering commissioning and […]

Engineer Andy Hynous and colleagues gear up for balloon launches just outside McMurdo Station, Antarctica.

The air-LUSI instrument, designed to take accurate measurements of the Moon to improve Earth observing sensors, demonstrated its capabilities aboard the ER-2.

Karibu! Welcome! I just returned from a training in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, after an incredible week focused on using satellite data to better understand complex watershed dynamics and manage water resources. Referred to as Dar by locals, Tanzania’s largest city sits on the tropical east coast of Africa and is full of salty sea […]

We have embarked on a search for our “home” for the next year—an ice floe which has just the right characteristics of size, thickness, and representativeness to support the huge suite of scientific instruments and projects that comprise MOSAiC.

The BITSE team tested the door on their instrument, which was almost ready for its balloon flight to the top of the sky.

When I said I was going to Ouagadougou (Wa-ga-du-gu), the first question was “where, again?” So let’s start with the basics. Ouagadougou is the capital of Burkina Faso–a land-locked country in West Africa–located to the south of Mali, southwest of Niger, and north of Ghana and Togo. It is home to over 80 ethnic groups […]

The most recent balloon launch marks the fifth so far this year from Fort Sumner.