A Change Of Direction
In the mid-1980’s NASA decided to open the contract for engineering support of the
NASA Balloon Program and operations of the NSBF to competition. This was the
first open contract competition involving NSBF staffing. A major concern for NASA
was retaining the skilled staff at NSBF during a contractor transition. The skills for
balloon operations were not taught in any school. The only source of skilled staff
was NSBF or the Air Force Balloon Program out of Holloman AFB in Alamogordo,
NM. At least four proposals, including one from the incumbent UCAR, were submitted to NASA for evaluation. In July 1987 NASA announced the award of the
contract to the Physical Science Laboratory of New Mexico State University.
PSL-NMSU took over the management of the NSBF on October 1, 1987.
During the transition period between contractors, balloon launch operations were
being performed in Prince Albert, Canada, and also being planned for Alice
Springs, Australia. PSL hired all of the incumbent operational staff and most of
the engineering and support staff. The PSL Program Manager, Art Gilcrease, the
NSBF Site Manager, Dwight Bawcom, and the NSBF Administrative Manager,
Terri Kuenstler, were the only current PSL-NMSU staff moved from Las Cruces,
NM to Palestine, TX. A large majority of the technical support staff transitioned
to the PSL-NMSU.
Support of the NASA Balloon Program operations under the new contract continued to go smoothly with a launch crew leaving Palestine for Alice Springs,
Australia just a few weeks after the contract changeover. This was a particularly
critical time for operations due to the initiation of the NASA program to collect
gamma-ray science data from Supernova SN1987A with a number of high priority
balloon payloads in May 1987. Over the next two years a total of 24 flights were
launched from Alice Springs in six separate campaigns.
A NASA flight safety analysis in 1987 resulted in limitations for NSBF to
launch balloons flying east of Palestine, TX and created a no-fly zone (roughly
anything that would fly over a line between Oklahoma City and Dallas, TX) for
balloons going east of Fort Sumner, NM. In 1992 NSBF established a balloon
launch site near Daggett, CA with the goal of launching balloons to fly east into
the panhandle of Texas for flight termination. While the concept appeared attractive, a couple of things would make it untenable: poor weather conditions at the
launch site and air traffic control limitations. Since that time, the operational concept for routine support of line of sight zero-pressure balloon flights in the CONUS
has been stratospheric turnaround flights from Fort Sumner, NM and flights traveling west from NSBF in the summer. Pre-turnaround and Post- turnaround flights
from Fort Sumner are supported using NSBF as a downrange station for easterly
going flights and Holbrook, AZ for flights going west.
The need for a transportable payload launch vehicle to handle increasingly
heavy payloads resulted in the design and purchase of the Mobile Launch Vehicle
(MLV). The large NSBF based payload launch vehicle, “Tiny Tim”, is not able to
262 Appendix 1: A Brief History of the NSBF/CSBF
In the mid-1980’s NASA decided to open the contract for engineering support of the
NASA Balloon Program and operations of the NSBF to competition. This was the
first open contract competition involving NSBF staffing. A major concern for NASA
was retaining the skilled staff at NSBF during a contractor transition. The skills for
balloon operations were not taught in any school. The only source of skilled staff
was NSBF or the Air Force Balloon Program out of Holloman AFB in Alamogordo,
NM. At least four proposals, including one from the incumbent UCAR, were submitted to NASA for evaluation. In July 1987 NASA announced the award of the
contract to the Physical Science Laboratory of New Mexico State University.
PSL-NMSU took over the management of the NSBF on October 1, 1987.
During the transition period between contractors, balloon launch operations were
being performed in Prince Albert, Canada, and also being planned for Alice
Springs, Australia. PSL hired all of the incumbent operational staff and most of
the engineering and support staff. The PSL Program Manager, Art Gilcrease, the
NSBF Site Manager, Dwight Bawcom, and the NSBF Administrative Manager,
Terri Kuenstler, were the only current PSL-NMSU staff moved from Las Cruces,
NM to Palestine, TX. A large majority of the technical support staff transitioned
to the PSL-NMSU.
Support of the NASA Balloon Program operations under the new contract continued to go smoothly with a launch crew leaving Palestine for Alice Springs,
Australia just a few weeks after the contract changeover. This was a particularly
critical time for operations due to the initiation of the NASA program to collect
gamma-ray science data from Supernova SN1987A with a number of high priority
balloon payloads in May 1987. Over the next two years a total of 24 flights were
launched from Alice Springs in six separate campaigns.
A NASA flight safety analysis in 1987 resulted in limitations for NSBF to
launch balloons flying east of Palestine, TX and created a no-fly zone (roughly
anything that would fly over a line between Oklahoma City and Dallas, TX) for
balloons going east of Fort Sumner, NM. In 1992 NSBF established a balloon
launch site near Daggett, CA with the goal of launching balloons to fly east into
the panhandle of Texas for flight termination. While the concept appeared attractive, a couple of things would make it untenable: poor weather conditions at the
launch site and air traffic control limitations. Since that time, the operational concept for routine support of line of sight zero-pressure balloon flights in the CONUS
has been stratospheric turnaround flights from Fort Sumner, NM and flights traveling west from NSBF in the summer. Pre-turnaround and Post- turnaround flights
from Fort Sumner are supported using NSBF as a downrange station for easterly
going flights and Holbrook, AZ for flights going west.
The need for a transportable payload launch vehicle to handle increasingly
heavy payloads resulted in the design and purchase of the Mobile Launch Vehicle
(MLV). The large NSBF based payload launch vehicle, “Tiny Tim”, is not able to
262 Appendix 1: A Brief History of the NSBF/CSBF