Rymdteleskopet PoGO+ har nu landat efter sin färd från Esrange i Kiruna till Victoriaön i Kanada. Vi på Rymdkanalen hälsar grattis till alla som arbetat med projektet.
Här nedanför berättar projektledaren Mark Pearce om hur resan gick:
PoGO+ has landed - it’s time to go home!
After a mission time of 163.5 hours, the gondola was cut from the balloon at 23:40 on 18th July and landed by parachute approximately 50 minutes later on Victoria Island, Canada. A recovery team will soon arrive at the landing site and organise transport of the gondola back to Sweden. Most important for us are the data storage units which are filled with more than 100 GBytes of scientific data from the flight. That we appear to have landed on dry land is quite a relief given the amount of water on Victoria Island!
The flight has gone extremely well - the PoGO+ team is tired but very happy! We conducted 7 observations of the Crab and 6 observations of Cygnus X-1. Observing conditions were excellent and we are looking forward to starting the analysis of the unique data once it is returned to Sweden (and once we’ve taken some vacation!).
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my PoGO+ colleagues for their very hard work and dedication during the preparation for, and execution of, this flight. In recent weeks, Esrange has been our second home while we’ve been away from our families and friends - they also deserve thanks for putting up with us and our obsession with the Crab. I’d also like to thank the team at SSC for providing great support while we have been at Esrange, for the flawless spectacular balloon launch, and the subsequent skillful piloting which has given us excellent observation conditions. Thanks also to the team from PSL, New Mexico, for their valuable support during the campaign and to our long standing collaborators DST Control in Linköping.
- Mark
