All experiments aboard were lost

Apr 29, 2010 14:58 GMT  ·  By
A balloon is seen here being launched from the Alice Springs Balloon Launching Center, in Australia
   A balloon is seen here being launched from the Alice Springs Balloon Launching Center, in Australia

The Alice Springs Balloon Launching Center, near the town of Alice Springs, in the northern territory of Australia, was today the scene of a serious accident, which took place as NASA scientists attempted to launch a new observations balloon. The massive, 400-foot (121-meter) object suffered an unexpected glitch shortly after take-off, as its gondola appears to have simply become loose from the straps attaching it to the balloon itself. The structure was carrying two telescopes, designed to investigate the Universe in wavelengths invisible to the human eye, Space reports.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) already released a video showing the terrible incident. The balloon nearly injured a few onlookers, but the individuals managed to get out of the way in time, and eventually no one was hurt. The payload, worth several million dollars, was damaged beyond repair, according to initial estimates. “We were sitting in our car and preparing to move it out of the way and we were actually about a foot of being wiped out,” told ABC Stan and Betty Davies, who were still in their car as the wayward balloon passed in close proximity to them, before totaling another vehicle nearby.

“Today was a terrible day for a lot of people. For the NCT team, we've poured our hearts into this instrument for years.  It was an almost unfathomable shock to find ourselves cleaning up the wreckage of our gondola rather than watching it lift off towards space,” said on his blog University of California in Berkeley (UCB) graduate student in astronomy Eric Bellm. The NCT was the Nuclear Compton Telescope (NCT), a scientific instrument that was to act as a gamma-ray telescope for identifying sources of energetic radiation in the Universe.

Also aboard was the HERO X-ray telescope, which was being launched for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), in Huntsville, Alabama. Its mission was to investigate the central regions of our galaxy, and to produce an X-ray map of the Milky Way core for the facility. “Ballooning, that's the way it happens on occasions but it is very, very disappointing. Gut-wrenching actually,” said of today's incident the director of the Alice Springs Balloon Launching Center, Ravi Sood. He is also a professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).