United States space agency Nasa confirmed yesterday it would be running its superpressure balloon campaign next year from Wanaka Airport.
A Nasa spokesman said yesterday the agency was excited to return to Wānaka.
There were two flights planned from late March to early June.
The missions for this campaign were focused around cutting edge science and expanding the capability of the superpressure balloon systems.
"With these missions, we continue our work to test and perfect the superpressure balloon technology with the goal of long duration flight [upwards of 100 days] at stable float altitudes in the stratosphere."
Nasa’s first flight was in 2015. It was followed by flights in 2016 and 2017.
In 2017 it took flight after seven failed launches.
The programme was set to return in 2019 but was cancelled because of a partial government shutdown.
In 2020 and 2021, Covid wrecked any chance of visits and although the programme returned in 2022, it failed to get off the ground through a combination of weather and technical difficulties.
Two balloons were successfully sent up last year, although one sprung a leak after a day and was forced down by Nasa technicians.
The other balloon lasted 39 days and 14 hours, and was the best and longest flight from Wānaka.
The balloons are 532,000cum in volume when fully inflated, which is about the size of Forsyth Barr Stadium, in Dunedin.
Nasa said Wanaka was the perfect location for the balloon launches as it had the latitude, calm conditions and dispersed population around the airport, particularly in the east where the balloon was likely to drift.
The balloon programme provides high-altitude scientific balloon platforms for scientific and technological investigations.
