NASA Scientific Balloons Prepare for 2026 Fort Sumner Campaign - Wallops Flight Facility

A NASA Scientific Balloon Program annual campaign is getting ready to take flight at the agency’s balloon launch facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Six balloon flights carrying scientific experiments, technology demonstrations, and student payloads are scheduled to launch starting in mid-August. 

NASA’s high-altitude scientific balloon being prepared for launch at Fort Sumner, N.M., during the agency’s 2024 fall balloon campaign. The mission carried research instruments to the stratosphere to conduct experiments above 99.5% of Earth’s atmosphere.

NASA/Francis Reddy

This year’s campaign marks the 20th flight for the High-Altitude Student Platform carrying payloads developed by student teams. Over the course of two decades, more than 1,900 students from about 25 institutions across the United States have participated in flying experiments on the balloon platform. This year, 17 student teams will fly payloads to the edge of space that are prototypes for future CubeSats or larger payloads. 

The High-Altitude Student Platform program is a partnership among the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium, the Astrophysics Division in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, and the agency’s Balloon Program Office and Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas.  

Four balloons will carry technology demonstrations and secondary science experiments called “piggyback” missions. This includes the second year for NASA’s Balloon Program Office’s Balloon Optimization Opportunity Payload, or BOOP!, which allows multiple technology instruments to be tested during flight for future missions.  

A new science payload to study the Sun’s corona will fly using the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), a specialized platform that can point scientific instruments at targets during flight at sub-arc-second accuracy. This flight will demonstrate the payload’s capabilities for a potential future Antarctica mission to observe the Sun over one solar rotation, which would take at least 27 days.  

To follow the missions in the 2026 Fort Sumner campaign, visit NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website for real-time updates of balloons’ altitudes and locations during flight.  

Zero-pressure balloons, used in this campaign, are in thermal equilibrium with their surroundings as they fly. They maintain a zero-pressure differential with ducts that allow gas to escape to prevent an increase in pressure from inside the balloons as they rise above Earth’s surface. This zero-pressure design makes the balloons very robust and well-suited for short, domestic flights, such as those in this campaign. 

NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia manages the agency’s scientific balloon flight program. Peraton, which operates NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, provides mission planning, engineering services, and field operations for NASA’s Scientific Balloon Program. NASA’s balloons are fabricated by Aerostar. The NASA Scientific Balloon Program is funded by the Science Mission Directorate’s Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.   

Source: NASA Scientific Balloons Prepare for 2026 Fort Sumner Campaign  - NASA