Integrated access to balloon-borne platforms for innovative research and technology

Project Information

HEMERA

Grant agreement ID: 730970

DOI

10.3030/730970

Project closed

EC signature date 25 January 2018

Start date 1 January 2018

End date 31 October 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 5 108 398,75

EU contribution

€ 4 991 211,25

Coordinated by

CENTRE NATIONAL D'ETUDES SPATIALES - CNES
France

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - HEMERA (Integrated access to balloon-borne platforms for innovative research andtechnology)

Reporting period: 2021-01-01 to 2022-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

HEMERA gathers the European community of balloon-borne researchers.

The balloons described in this summary are mainly very large (up to 100m long) and can fly up to altitude of 40km, at the top of the stratosphere.

Practicing science in the stratosphere is not easy but is essential to develop scientific and technology knowledge. European scientists get an access to stratospheric flights thanks to HEMERA.

In Europe, only France and Sweden have a regular capability to send large scientific balloons in the stratosphere. This project is a good way to widen this access to all the European researchers. Real synergy between several European experiments was implemented by gathering them on the same flight.

Various researchers, from the broad following scientific fields have proposed to fly their experiments in the stratosphere : astronomy, atmospheric physics and chemistry, climate research, fundamental physics, biology, space research and technology.

Scientific topics with a very high societal impact, as climate knowledge, were handled through this project. In addition, technology experiments, frontier research and educational experiments were realized too.

A FAIR database of balloon-based projects has been created to gather all the results of these experiments.

Last but not least, standardization and development of new services and improved flight capabilities were funded in the frame of this project. Smaller sensors, bigger balloons or improved RF transceivers are a few examples.

Communication around this project toward various publics was continuously done through press releases, summer school or conferences.

At the end of this H2020 project, a new funding scheme has to be imagined to keep an access to stratosphere for the European researchers. Some solutions have been defined to overcome this challenge and they will be tested in the following years.

Do not hesitate to look very high in the sky next summer : you will probably see new scientific experiments, flying below very large balloons, initiated by the HEMERA project.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

HEMERA started in January 2018 and was achieved in October 2022. Most of the flight campaigns were done in 2021 and 2022.

Experiments selection was done through two open and public calls for proposals. After the two evaluation processes performed by an independent Peer Review Group, 39 experiments from 13 countries were selected.

Impressive world-class experiments flew during this project : a mock-up of a earth-explorer ESA satellite, an hyperspectral imager dedicated to atmospheric chemistry, a "space dust" collector, a beautiful coronagraph with an impressive pointing capability..... In addition, very interesting science was performed by gathering smaller experiments on the same gondola. Frontier research was done too, for example through several radiation probes experiments.

Students from several universities attended the flight campaign and have developed their own experiences. Applied researchers and industry have tested during these balloons campaigns (for example) new solar cells or a new termination system of a stratospheric airship.

All the flights were successful. Most of the experiments have properly worked and the first results are really good. Satisfaction surveys were filled by scientists at the end of each flight and the satisfaction level is really high.

In parallel, new instruments, improved balloon subsystems and a database were developed.

Data from experiments can be uploaded from the HEMERA datacenter. An HEMERA summer school in Heidelberg 2019 and an impressive HEMERA workshop in Rome -July 20222 were specifically organized to present these very good results.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

From a scientific perspective, HEMERA experiments have contributed to improve our knowledge in several scientific domains, especially in the climate and the atmospheric domain.

From a technology perspective, some future operational satellites or stratospheric airship will be improved thanks to some of the HEMERA experiments.

From an educational perspective, a new generation of researchers gained hands-on experience thanks to the HEMERA program.

An European community was gathered during 4 years around balloons and a scheme is defined to keep on building beautiful experiments together. HEMERA was the trigger of many future European stratospheric experiments.

Balloons are a green technology with a huge capability in the stratosphere, which is still today underemployed. This technology will maybe enjoy a strong growth in the next decades. HEMERA was a good preparation for this new era.

HEMERA Gondola - Kiruna 2021 - Copyright CNES/PRODIGIMA/GABORIAUD Romain, 2021