Balloon Missions

OLIMPO balloon successfully launched from Svalbard

July 25, 2018
OLIMPO balloon successfully launched from Svalbard

The Italian scientific balloon mission OLIMPO was successfully launched on July 14 at 07:07 UTC from Longyearbyen, Svalbard.

After a slow ascent, the balloon reached a float altitude of 37 800 m after 5 hours. The trajectory of the balloon took it westwards out over the Arctic Ocean, Greenland and Canada.

On July 19 at 01:58 UTC the balloon was commanded to land on Ellesmere Island, the northernmost island of Canada. Recovery operations are underway and are expected to be completed within a week.

The purpose of this challenging project is to map the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect in many clusters of galaxies, both in the Northern and in the Southern hemispheres.

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