COSI flying as mission of opportuni

COSI flying as mission of opportunity
One group familiar with the potential of SPBs is the Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) team from the University of California, Berkeley. COSI is a NASA-funded telescope designed to probe the mysterious origins of galactic positrons, study the creation of new elements in the galaxy, and perform pioneering studies of gamma-ray bursts and black holes. Long-duration flights are vital to these types of studies.

"SPBs enable completely new types of science investigations, such as we are attempting with COSI," said Steven Boggs, professor of physics at Berkeley and leader of the COSI collaboration. "The long duration and night-time observation capabilities of SPBs are transformative. COSI is just the first science payload to take advantage of these new capabilities.

The COSI payload is flying on the SPB test flight as a mission of opportunity. COSI last flew on an SPB that launched from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Dec. 28, 2014. Unfortunately, that balloon developed a small leak, leading to an early flight termination just one day and 20 hours after launch. Lessons learned from that mission have been applied to the upcoming SPB flight from Wanaka.