NASA WASP: Planetary scientists gain new observation platform

Scientists used the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP) to precisely point the HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science during a balloon mission in September. 

Shown here after it landed, the imager collected radiance data for nearly half of its eight-and-a-half hour flight. 

Credit: NASA

Scientists who study Earth, the sun and stars have long used high-altitude scientific balloons to carry their telescopes far into the stratosphere for a better view of their targets.

Not so much for planetary scientists. That's because they needed a highly stable, off-the-shelf-type system that could accurately point their instruments and then track planetary targets as they moved in the solar system. That device now exists.

NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., has designed a new pointing system, the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), that can point balloon-borne scientific instruments at targets with sub arc-second accuracy and stability.

A planetary scientist—interested in finding less-expensive platforms for observing Jupiter and other extraterrestrial bodies—now plans to test drive the device later this year.

David Stuchlik

"Arc-second pointing is unbelievably precise," said David Stuchlik, the WASP project manager.

"Some compare it to the ability to find and track an object that is the diameter of a dime from two miles away."

WASP is designed to be a highly flexible, standardized system capable of supporting many science payloads, Stuchlik added.

Its development frees scientists, who in the past had to develop their own pointing systems, to instead focus on instrument development.

Given the technology's potential, the WASP team has received NASA Science Mission Directorate funding to further enhance the new capability as a standard support system.

First tested in 2011 and then again in 2012, the most recent test flight occurred from Fort Sumner, N.M., in September 2013.

During that flight, a 30-story balloon lifted an engineering test unit of the HyperSpectral Imager for Climate Science (HySICS) to an altitude of nearly 122,000 feet, far above the majority of Earth's atmosphere.

From this vantage point, WASP precisely pointed HySICS so that it could measure Earth, the sun and the moon.

Developed by Greg Kopp of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), the imager collected radiance data for nearly half of its eight-and-a-half hour flight, demonstrating improved techniques for future space-based radiance tests.

Kopp now is preparing his imager for another balloon flight this September.