Final mission?
In 2010, on its fourth mission, BLAST was already equipped with polarimeters. However, accdording to Devlin, "that flight did not do so well because of a melted filter. We have some data, but we know we can do better."

Luckily, repeating a balloon-borne experiment is much easier and much cheaper than re-launching a scientific satellite. After each flight, most of the payload is recovered and can be used again. In particular, the BLAST camera with its sensitive and expensive detectors has been recovered every single time.

BLAST's fifth flight will probably last between 12 and 14 days. While Devlin, Netterfield and their colleagues are celebrating Christmans and New Year's Eve, the 4,000-pound (1800 kilograms) stratospheric telescope will observe selected star-forming regions in the constellations Vela and Lupus.

And if senior graduate student Tristan Matthews of Northwestern University Illinois has his way, this may not be BLAST's final mission after all. Depending on the results and the recovery success of the current flight, Matthews hopes to fly BLAST in its present configuration for a sixth time, in the Arctic. "That would give us access to a well-studied and nearby star-forming region in Taurus," he said.

Meanwhile, Devlin has received a $5 million grant from NASA over a period of five years to develop a larger version of BLAST, with a 2.5-meter mirror, as compared to the current 1.8-meter aperture. That would vastly increase the number of stellar nurseries that could be studied. "We could fly SuperBLAST in 2016 or so," he said.

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3 Comments

1. 1. alan6302 07:15 PM 12/26/12

   Of course this is the last mission. Nibiru will swing by soon enough. There is a rumor that NASA lied about the IRAS telescope. It was actually a huge success. It may have been the first to find planet X.

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2. 2. Wayne Williamson 02:07 PM 12/27/12

   @alan6302...I thought it wasn't due for another 3600 years;-)

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3. 3. Acoyauh2 02:47 PM 12/27/12

   Is Nibiru the dark star? Or is that Nemesis? Then who's Tyche?
   Oh, gosh, there are so many celestial bodies intent on our destruction I really can't tell which is which anymore. And don't get me started on giant asteroids attacking from Sun-side to avoid detection!
   
   I was hoping all this doomsday talk would quiet down for a while after 122112... at least for a while... but no, some actually seem to need impending doom to have some fun in life. Meh.
   

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