Category Archives: Uncategorized

Now that SPIDER has finished its flight, the team will spend the next year or more analyzing the collected data. We will begin with baby steps, piecing all the raw data into a coherent set of calibrated time-ordered data. These … Continue reading →

Good news! Our team has been able to recover the data collected by SPIDER during her flight over Antarctica. These photos were taken by SPIDER during and just a few hours after launch.    

After a long period of anxious expectation, the data from SPIDER have been recovered from the landing site, some 2,300 km (1,500 miles) from McMurdo Station.  The data, residing on a combination of hard disk and solid state drives, are enroute to Punta Arenas, … Continue reading →

SPIDER was released from her balloon at 5:55 am local time today (11:55 EST Saturday, January 17), and parachuted gracefully (we think) to earth. She took a pretty weird tour of the continent. The winds didn’t act exactly as we … Continue reading →

SPIDER landed safely on Saturday, January 17, reported William Jones, lead researcher on the project and an assistant professor of physics at Princeton. The crew will now undertake an expedition to recover the data from where SPIDER set down, about … Continue reading →

We are still collecting data with our instruments, and plan to continue for another few days. At that point we expect to arrive at a location that would be favorable for recovery. By then we will have collected enough data … Continue reading →

SPIDER has now been at float for a little over a week. The payload has been very slowly wandering south, a different trajectory than you’d usually expect for a Long Duration Balloon (LDB). Normally they make circular trips around the … Continue reading →

The past 48 hours has been a whirlwind, crash-course in the thrilling ride that is scientific ballooning. As I write this, SPIDER has been officially declared ‘at float’ at an altitude of 36 kilometers, our cryogenic system is functioning beautifully, our … Continue reading →

Read about SPIDER’s progress in this article in the New York Times.

SPIDER has launched and is ascending.  The instrument has answered the phone and called home, and seems to be functioning well.