A 130-meter high balloon was released on Saturday afternoon from Esrange – the largest balloon the space base in Kiruna has sent up into the sky so far.
The US space agency NASA is behind the balloon, which is intended to travel all the way to North America. During its journey, it will study X-rays with the goal of being able to take the first high-resolution images of them, according to the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC).
The balloon is 1.7 million cubic meters in size, has a diameter of 163 meters, and weighs 1,270 kilos. The hope is that the balloon will fly higher than 45.7 kilometers from the Earth's surface, higher than NASA's previous stratospheric balloons have flown.
"This is completely unique and now that we're reaching the climax with the largest balloon ever, we're really showing that we're among the best in the world at what we do," says Lennart Poromaa, site manager at Esrange, in a press release.
