Before a space telescope ever reaches orbit, and long after satellites are up there, NASA has another way to do frontier science: high-altitude scientific balloons. These balloons can loft instruments to roughly 120,000 feet (about 36.6 kilometers) — high in the stratosphere, above most of Earth's atmosphere—at a fraction of the cost and complexity of a space mission, while still enabling serious astrophysics, heliophysics, Earth science, and technology testing.
Antarctica is one of the best places on Earth to fly these missions. NASA's annual Antarctic Long-Duration Balloon campaign operates from a site on the Ross Ice Shelf near the U.S. National Science Foundation's McMurdo Station.
