HEMERA 2020

The balloon data

The French Space Agency (CNES) has been supporting scientific ballooning since its establishment, particularly in atmospheric science measurements, currently launching about 50 balloons a year. Balloon platforms offer excellent opportunities for scientific exploration, particularly for atmospheric observations that look through the atmosphere, and for astrophysical observations from above the atmosphere. To conduct a series of balloon flights, each carrying a suite of instruments to measure vertical profiles of the key stratospheric species that control the mid-latitude ozone budget, particularly species in the NOy, Cly, Bry, and HOx chemical families, along with dynamical tracers and aerosols. In this context, AERIS has in charge to collect, treat, qualify and distribute to the scientific community, all French data measured by such instruments in one part but also for European community in the area of the HEMERA-2020 project in other part.

Description of the HEMERA project

HEMERA is a Research Infrastructure funded by the Horizon 2020 framework Programme of the European Union which integrates a large starting community in the field of tropospheric and stratospheric balloon-borne research, to make existing balloon facilities available to all scientific teams in the European Union, Canada and associated countries. The complementary of the HEMERA members’ capabilities in the field of balloon systems and operations will offer an easy and enhanced service to the scientific community. A wide range of scientific and technical themes are addressed, such as astronomy, atmospheric physics and chemistry, climate research, fundamental physics, biology, space research and technology.

The HEMERA project sets up a large consortium dealing with balloon-borne research, that will encompass 13 Partners from seven countries:

• Space agencies: Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) in France; Swedish National Space Board (SNSB) in Sweden; Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) in Italy; Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR) in Germany; Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in Canada,
• Companies operating these balloons and providing the hardware: Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) in Sweden; Andoya Space Center (ASC) in Norway; Airstar in France, which provides balloon envelopes,
• Scientists from the atmospheric sciences, astronomy and astrophysics communities: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France; Karlsruhe Institut fur Technologie (KIT) in Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) in Italy; Heidelberg University in Germany (UHEI); Cranfield University (CU) in the UK.

This combination of space agencies, companies and scientific communities ensures that the HEMERA infrastructure will provide the best environment and technologies to fulfil its overarching goals.

HEMERA aims to develop strong synergies with the European Union programme COPERNICUS, be complementary to the European Space Agency programmes and establish links with other European Commission (EC) infrastructures (e.g. ACTRIS, IAGOS).

Gallery

Contacts

Point of contact

Cathy Boonne (CDS ESPRI (Institut Pierre Simon Laplace))

Cathy.Boonne@ipsl.fr Coordinator CDS ESPRI

Sébastien Payan (LATMOS (Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales))

Sebastien.Payan@latmos.ipsl.fr Coordinator HEMERA data centre