BLAST Telescope about to Launch from Antarctica
Submitted
by
mtruch
mtruch writes "BLAST, the
Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope
is about to be launched from McMurdo Station,
Antarctica. BLAST
is a 2700 kg telescope with a 2 meter primary mirror that hangs from a 1.1
million cubic metre balloon floating at an altitude of 38 km that will study
the star formation history of the universe. It will float west at nearly
constant latitude for about 14 days until it is (hopefully) located over
McMurdo again and will be terminated and recovered. Real time position and flight
track is available from the CSBF. Watch the launch live via a
crappy webcam link.
Three of the graduate students working on the project have photo blogs of much of the prep period, and specifically Don's blog should have launch photos soon
(bandwidth to/from McMurdo is at a premium).
BLAST made it on slashdot in the past, when it launched from Sweden in June 2005, and indirectly with an interview with Prof. Barth Netterfield and George Staikos. Yes, the flight computers still run Slack, and yes, we still use kst for data viewing and analysis. There is Discovery Science show about BLAST and high-altitude balloons, and a future documentary film being made about BLAST."
BLAST made it on slashdot in the past, when it launched from Sweden in June 2005, and indirectly with an interview with Prof. Barth Netterfield and George Staikos. Yes, the flight computers still run Slack, and yes, we still use kst for data viewing and analysis. There is Discovery Science show about BLAST and high-altitude balloons, and a future documentary film being made about BLAST."