and associated life support systems. Despite its success, later planned flights for
this project never materialized owing to lack of funds. Hence STARGAZER
became the closing act in the history of high altitude manned balloons. No other
manned flights have been attempted by any U.S. federal agency or the military, but
there have been a number of private civilian efforts.
Many different types of balloon flights were conducted at Holloman and nearby
Walker AFB over the following decade. These included parachute, gondola and
nose cone tests, as well as atmospheric sampling (some to test for radionuclides
from nuclear tests conducted by the Russians, Chinese, and others).
A large number of balloon failures in the mid-1970’s caused the Air Force to
seek a contractor to assume overall management of the operations. So in 1976 the
first major ballooning contract (valued at about $300,000 per year) was awarded
to the Physical Science Laboratory (PSL) of New Mexico State University
(NMSU) in Las Cruces to take control of the operations in fiscal year 1977. With
an external contractor, flight and mission failures declined. Operations were conducted from the Balloon Operations Center located in Building 850 at Holloman
AFB. These facilities included administrative offices, a payload integration hall
and all of the balloon support instrumentation for telemetry, flight control, flight
safety, data acquisition and display, in-flight tracking, communications and navigation. The building also had a complete weather station, machine shop, instrumentation lab, parachute shop, and a small altitude chamber. Mobile facilities
included vans for radio command communications, telemetry and flight tracking.
In the mid-1990’s, the Balloon Branch was placed under the direct management of the Vehicles Space Experiment Integration Office, headquartered at
Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM. This organization was under the Air Force
Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Their main facility was
located on the west side of Kirtland, and was known as the Aerospace Engineering
Facility. Part of the Space Technology Integration and Demonstration Division of
the Air Force Research Laboratory, it focused on integration, verification and testing of space experiments.
Since the turn of the century only six flights from Kirkland AFB are listed on
the Stratocat website.
9.4.2 DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is also involved in
balloons. The purpose of the Adaptable Lighter Than Air (ALTA) program is to
develop and demonstrate a high altitude lighter-than-air vehicle capable of windborne navigation over extended ranges. The balloons can fly at altitudes of more
than 23 km (75,000 ft). Although it is not capable of independent propulsion the
ALTA vehicle is designed to navigate by changing altitude to take advantage of
different wind profiles aloft. A state of the art Winds Aloft Sensor (WAS) was also
being developed by the program in order to provide real-time stratospheric wind
measurements.
9.4 Military and Security 227
this project never materialized owing to lack of funds. Hence STARGAZER
became the closing act in the history of high altitude manned balloons. No other
manned flights have been attempted by any U.S. federal agency or the military, but
there have been a number of private civilian efforts.
Many different types of balloon flights were conducted at Holloman and nearby
Walker AFB over the following decade. These included parachute, gondola and
nose cone tests, as well as atmospheric sampling (some to test for radionuclides
from nuclear tests conducted by the Russians, Chinese, and others).
A large number of balloon failures in the mid-1970’s caused the Air Force to
seek a contractor to assume overall management of the operations. So in 1976 the
first major ballooning contract (valued at about $300,000 per year) was awarded
to the Physical Science Laboratory (PSL) of New Mexico State University
(NMSU) in Las Cruces to take control of the operations in fiscal year 1977. With
an external contractor, flight and mission failures declined. Operations were conducted from the Balloon Operations Center located in Building 850 at Holloman
AFB. These facilities included administrative offices, a payload integration hall
and all of the balloon support instrumentation for telemetry, flight control, flight
safety, data acquisition and display, in-flight tracking, communications and navigation. The building also had a complete weather station, machine shop, instrumentation lab, parachute shop, and a small altitude chamber. Mobile facilities
included vans for radio command communications, telemetry and flight tracking.
In the mid-1990’s, the Balloon Branch was placed under the direct management of the Vehicles Space Experiment Integration Office, headquartered at
Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM. This organization was under the Air Force
Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio. Their main facility was
located on the west side of Kirtland, and was known as the Aerospace Engineering
Facility. Part of the Space Technology Integration and Demonstration Division of
the Air Force Research Laboratory, it focused on integration, verification and testing of space experiments.
Since the turn of the century only six flights from Kirkland AFB are listed on
the Stratocat website.
9.4.2 DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is also involved in
balloons. The purpose of the Adaptable Lighter Than Air (ALTA) program is to
develop and demonstrate a high altitude lighter-than-air vehicle capable of windborne navigation over extended ranges. The balloons can fly at altitudes of more
than 23 km (75,000 ft). Although it is not capable of independent propulsion the
ALTA vehicle is designed to navigate by changing altitude to take advantage of
different wind profiles aloft. A state of the art Winds Aloft Sensor (WAS) was also
being developed by the program in order to provide real-time stratospheric wind
measurements.
9.4 Military and Security 227