Lancement d'un ballon léger dilatable (BLD) sur le site d'Alice Springs

Launching a lightweight dilatable sounding balloon in preparation for the PILOT, CLIMAT and CARMEN/CASOLBA missions at the Alice Springs balloon launch base in Australia. These small, sealed dilatable balloons are of the same type as used to gather meteorological data (weather balloons). Despite having a limited payload weight, this type of balloon can collect a great deal of useful data via a wide variety of instruments, such as particle counters or ozone meters, which measure the ozone quality in the atmosphere around the balloon. This sounding tool is able to make atmospheric pressure, temperature and humidity measurements up to an altitude of 35 km. To maximise the flight altitude and duration, balloon launches for the various missions must be planned to coincide with stratospheric wind inversions. To enable this, the research team consulted data from satellites and sounding balloons in search of the ideal meteorological conditions.