BLAST, a balloon-borne telescope, flies over Antarctica (Forwarded)

Canadian Space Agency

December 29, 2006

BLAST, a balloon-borne telescope, flies over Antarctica

Longueuil, Montreal -- A fascinating experiment is being conducted this
week over Antarctica by Canada and its partners, the U.S., the U.K. and
Mexico. Attached to a huge helium balloon, 2,000-kilogram BLAST
(balloon-borne large aperture sub-millimetre telescope) is peering deep
into space to study distant stars and galaxies. Launched from the McMurdo
Research Station in Antarctica on December 21, BLAST is expected to fly
for up to 10 days, circling 38,000 metres above the frozen continent in
the stratosphere. At such an altitude, the two-metre telescope offers
levels of sensitivity and resolution unmatched by any observation facility
on Earth.

The mission will shed light on fundamental questions about the formation
and evolution of stars and galaxies. BLAST will identify large numbers of
distant star-forming galaxies, study the earliest stages of star and
planet formation, and make high-resolution maps of diffuse galactic
emissions.

Canada is providing the gondola, the pointing control system, the data
acquisition system, the flight and ground station software, the power
system, and overall system integration. Canadian partners in this project
include the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, and
AMEC Dynamic Structures Ltd. of Port Coquitlam, B.C. Canadian funding was
provided by the Canadian Space Agency, who contributed $2 million for
equipment and mission operations, the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation,
the Ontario Innovation Trust, and the University of Toronto. International
partners include the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, the
University of Miami, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Cardiff University,
and the Instituto Nacional de Astrofisica of Mexico, with funding from
NASA and the U.K.'s Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
(PPARC).

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For more information:

Julie Simard
Media Relations, Canadian Space Agency
Telephone: (450) 926-4370

Photos of the launch are available on the CSA's web site at:
http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/scien...st_mission.asp