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NASA Balloon Campaign Concludes with Final Science Flight [1]

['Jamie Adkins', 'Nasa Goddard Digital Lead']

Date: 2026-10-06  

NASA Balloon Campaign Concludes with Final Science Flight

The CORSAIR/WASP balloon payload is suspended in the air before it’s prepared for launch operations on Oct. 5, 2026. NASA

The final mission of NASA’s fall balloon campaign successfully concluded, the reflight of the CORSAIR/WASP. The mission launched from the agency’s facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, at 7:30 a.m. MDT (9:30 a.m. EDT) on Oct. 5, 2026, after it aborted on Sept. 19.

The balloon and payload reached a float altitude of around 102,000 feet, and flew for a total of 8 hours, 28 minutes.

CORSAIR is a new science payload to study the Sun’s corona using the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP), a specialized platform that can point scientific instruments at targets during flight at sub-arc-second accuracy. This flight will demonstrate the payload’s capabilities for a potential future Antarctica mission to observe the Sun over one solar rotation, which would take at least 27 days.

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[1] Url: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/scientific-balloons/2026/10/06/nasa-balloon-campaign-concludes-with-final-science-flight/

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