Goddard Engineering and Technology Directorate

Airborne Support

XL-CALIBUR shown during a hang test at the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility.
The WASP (Wallops Arc-Second Pointer) team conducts a full range of motion hang test of the XL-CALIBUR x-ray telescope at CSBF (Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility) before it’s flight from Esrange Sweden in 2022.

Not Your Average Balloons

WASP provides arc-second pointing for a variety of science instruments including x-ray telescopes, solar chronographs, hyper-spectral imagers, and optical telescopes. WASP has flown on 11 missions from New Mexico, Antarctica, and Sweden. Two WASP flights are manifest for FY24, and several more missions in the planning stages for the 4 years. The WASP team works closely with science groups throughout the mission lifecycle, from initial mission development to integration to flight operations to recovery and refurbishment. The WASP team continuously improves WASP software and hardware to meet the requirements of new missions.

Code 598 provides a variety of support to the Balloon Program Office (BPO, Code 820) including Systems Engineering for the Super Pressure Balloon and Instrumentation development, engineering support developing the next generation Support Instrumentation Package, technology development, and development and implementation of the Balloon Risk Analysis Tool (BRAT) now in use by Flight Safety (Code 392) for every balloon launch. The majority of 598’s support of BPO is implementing and ongoing development of the Wallops Arc-Second Pointer (WASP).

Other programs and missions have benefited from WASP software and hardware. WASP star tracker software and hardware is being used in the development of a new star tracker for NASA’s Sounding Rocket Program. WASP ground and flight software, including a neural network controller, is being used on the upcoming COronal Diagnostic EXperiment (CODEX) mission that will fly on the International Space Station.