Prototype design and testing of a Venus long duration, high altitude balloon

Hall, Jeffery L.; Fairbrother, Debora; Frederickson, T.; Kerzhanovich, V. V.; Said, Magdi A.; Sandy, C.; Ware, J.; Willey, Cliff E.; Yavrouian, A.

doi:10.1016/j.asr.2007.03.017

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The main advantage of using SP balloons is their ability to maintain a stable altitude under atmospheric turbulence and diurnal solar flux variations. While various studies have illustrated the importance of spherical SP balloons for Venus [43,46,47], not much is said in the literature about the feasibility of ZP and OZP balloons for Venus explorations. This Section presents a comparative analysis of the three types of balloons (ZP, SP, and OZP) for exploring Venus.…”

Section: Balloons On Venusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In [17], the authors suggest that for lifting a 0.31 kg net payload mass (i.e. without gas tank), a balloon would have a diameter of around 0.4 m. For an exploratory balloon on Venus, certain envelope characteristics, payload mass, and float altitude have been suggested in the literature [43,47,50], and on the basis of these studies, the parameters used for simulating the balloon flight on Venus have been chosen and are listed in Table 4. Figures 5-7 illustrate the ascent behaviour of oblate, prolate, and airship shape ZP, SP, and OZP balloons for several fineness ratios.…”

Section: Balloons On Venusmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Balloon Design for Mars, Venus, and Titan Atmospheres

Garg

Kühn

2020

Applied Sciences

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This paper studies the specifications of balloons for the exploration of bodies with different atmospheric conditions. Three types of balloons, i.e., zero-pressure, super-pressure, and over-pressurized, with four different shapes, i.e., sphere, oblate, prolate, and airship, were analysed. First, the development of a simulation tool is described, which was used for analysing the behaviour of balloons for different exploration missions. Next, the developed software was verified by comparing its output with recorded data from a set of flights at the Esrange Space Center. Based on the simulation results, recommendations are given for different balloon types and shapes for operation on Mars, Venus, and Titan.

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Section: Balloons On Venusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Balloons On Venusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Balloon Design for Mars, Venus, and Titan Atmospheres

Garg

Kühn

2020

Applied Sciences

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“…The JSDT has found that the science goals can be enhanced through inclusion of additional mission elements (Fig. 10) (Hall et al 2008) or variable altitude Balloon • Sub-satellite In 2016, the JSDT completed pre-Phase A formulation of science goals and priorities along with its assessment of key areas for technology maturation (Senske et al 2017b). The next phase of development will focus on a deeper examination of the science and instruments along with the definition of spacecraft requirements.…”

Section: Roscosmosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future of Venus Research and Exploration

et al. 2018

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Despite the tremendous progress that has been made since the publication of the Venus II book in 1997, many fundamental questions remain concerning Venus' history, evolution and current geologic and atmospheric processes. The international science community has taken several approaches to prioritizing these questions, either through formal processes like the Planetary Decadal Survey in the United States and the Cosmic Vision in Europe, or informally through science definition teams utilized by Japan, Russia, and India. These questions are left to future investigators to address through a broad range of research approaches that include Earth-based observations, laboratory and modeling studies that are based on existing data, and new space flight missions. Many of the highest priority questions for Venus can be answered with new measurements acquired by orbiting or in situ missions that use current technologies, and several plausible implementation concepts have Venus III Edited

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“…JPL has led a technology development effort in recent years aimed at producing a Venus superpressure balloon that can carry a large payload in the range of 40-120 kg at a 55.5 km altitude for one (Earth) month. 1,2,3 Two 5.5 m prototypes have been constructed ( Fig. 1) and tested under a variety of conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4,5 Also, no pinholes were created in earlier versions of the JPL Venus balloon material in laboratory tests that evaluated severely folded and wrinkled samples. 2,3 Nevertheless, the possibility of pinhole creation cannot be completely discounted in lieu of further testing on full scale prototypes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pinhole Effects on Venus Superpressure Balloon Lifetime

Hall

Yavrouian

2013

AIAA Balloon Systems (BAL) Conference

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Experimental results are presented for a series of experiments that addressed the effect of small pinhole defects on the potential lifetime of a Venus superpressure balloon. The experiments were performed on samples of a candidate balloon envelope material through which a single small hole of 80 to 300 microns in diameter was deliberately made in each one by puncturing with a metal pin. The material was mounted horizontally in a test apparatus and then a 2-3 mm thick layer of sulfuric acid was placed on top to mimic balloon wetting at Venus. Acid penetration and damage manifested itself as a darkening of the aluminum metal and adhesive layers around the hole in the balloon material. There were no test conditions under which the acid simply fell through the pinhole due to gravity because the surface tension forces always compensated at this size. Very little acid-damaged material was observed for the smallest 80 micron pinholes while gas flowed through the hole due to balloon-like pressurization: the black spot size was approximately 0.2 mm in diameter after 6 days with 86% sulfuric acid. The damage area grew more quickly in the absence of gas flowing out of an 80 micron hole, namely at a rate of 2 mm/day. It was concluded that the flow of escaping gas out of the hole provides a substantial reduction of the rate of acid penetration and damage. Larger diameter pinholes of approximately 300 micron diameter showed larger growth rates of 0.7 mm/day with gas flow and 1.7 mm/day without. The pinhole size did not change over the duration of these experiments because the material has an outer layer of fluoropolymer film that remained intact during the process and thereby held the hole size constant. None of the damage rates measured in these experiments pose a threat to the lifetime of the balloon over the projected course of a 30 day mission because the affected area is too small to cause a structural failure either through direct damage or increased solar heating and attendant balloon pressurization leading to burst.

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Prototype design and testing of a Venus long duration, high altitude balloon

Cited by 21 publications

References 2 publications

Balloon Design for Mars, Venus, and Titan Atmospheres

Balloon Design for Mars, Venus, and Titan Atmospheres

Future of Venus Research and Exploration

Pinhole Effects on Venus Superpressure Balloon Lifetime

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