* Astronomy

On 8 July, at 05:41local time, a successful launch of a NASA scientific balloon carrying the scientific instrument TRACER was conducted from the SSC launch facility at Esrange Space Centre. The balloon has started its flight over the Atlantic towards North America where it will land in about a week.

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TRACER – the Transition Radiation Array for Cosmic Radiation, rose to an altitude of 40 km, practically outside the earth’s atmosphere, which facilitates observations of radiation from space. TRACER is an instrument for direct, balloon borne measurements of cosmic ray nuclei (boron to iron) at very high energies of up to several 10^14 eV per nucleus. For each cosmic ray the nuclear charge, the energy, and the trajectory through the instrument will be measured with detectors including 1600 gas filled tubes. Each tube is 2 m long with a diameter of 2 cm, making TRACER the largest cosmic ray detector in the world for observations above the atmosphere. It measures 2,5 x 2,5 x 2,5 m and weighs 1,8 tons. The entire instrument is produced at the University of Chicago by an international team that is also conducting the scientific mission.

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