ASTHROS Mission in Flight (Illustration)

NASA's Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths (ASTHROS), seen in this illustration, is a high-altitude balloon mission for studying astrophysical phenomena. Scheduled to launch no earlier than December 2023 from the agency's Long Duration Balloon Camp near McMurdo Station in Antarctica, ASTHROS will aim to fly for 21 to 28 days at an altitude of about 130,000 feet (24.6 miles or 40 kilometers). At that altitude, ASTHROS can observe wavelengths of light blocked by Earth's atmosphere. When fully inflated, the 40 million-cubic-foot helium balloon will be about 400 feet (150 meters) wide, or roughly the size of a football stadium. The ASTHROS telescope features a lightweight 8.4-foot (2.5-meter) primary mirror to collect far-infrared light – one of the largest to ever fly on a high-altitude balloon mission. Balloon missions typically cost less than space missions and take less time to move from early planning to deployment. They also employ new technologies that can then be used on future space missions. The mission's main science goal is to study stellar feedback, the process by which living stars disperse and reshap

Date

2022-06-29

Photographer / author

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Collection

JPL

Archive

NASA Image and Video Library

Type

illustration (NASA artwork)

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