The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope: BLAST
- Creators
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Pascale, E.
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Ade, P. A. R.
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Bock, J. J.
- Chapin, E. L.
- Chung, J.
- Devlin, M. J.
- Dicker, S.
- Griffin, M.
- Gundersen, J. O.
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Halpern, M.
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Hargrave, P. C.
- Hughes, D. H.
- Klein, J.
- MacTavish, C. J.
- Marsden, G.
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Martin, P. G.
- Martin, T. G.
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Mauskopf, P.
- Netterfield, C. B.
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Olmi, L.
- Patanchon, G.
- Rex, M.
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Scott, D.
- Semisch, C.
- Thomas, N.
- Truch, M. D. P.
- Tucker, C.
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Tucker, G. S.
- Viero, M. P.
- Wiebe, D. V.
Abstract
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a suborbital surveying experiment designed to study the evolutionary history and processes of star formation in local galaxies (including the Milky Way) and galaxies at cosmological distances. The BLAST continuum camera, which consists of 270 detectors distributed between three arrays, observes simultaneously in broadband (30%) spectral windows at 250, 350, and 500 μm. The optical design is based on a 2 m diameter telescope, providing a diffraction-limited resolution of 30'' at 250 μm. The gondola pointing system enables raster mapping of arbitrary geometry, with a repeatable positional accuracy of ~30''; postflight pointing reconstruction to ≾5'' rms is achieved. The onboard telescope control software permits autonomous execution of a preselected set of maps, with the option of manual override. In this paper we describe the primary characteristics and measured in-flight performance of BLAST. BLAST performed a test flight in 2003 and has since made two scientifically productive long-duration balloon flights: a 100 hr flight from ESRANGE (Kiruna), Sweden to Victoria Island, northern Canada in 2005 June; and a 250 hr, circumpolar flight from McMurdo Station, Antarctica, in 2006 December.
Additional Information
© 2008 The American Astronomical Society. Received 2007 May 29; accepted 2008 March 20. The BLAST collaboration acknowledges the support of NASA through grants NAG5-12785, NAG5-13301, and NNGO-6GI11G, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Innovation Trust, the Puerto Rico Space Grant Consortium, the Fondo Istitucional para la Investigacion of the University of Puerto Rico, and the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs; C. B. N. also acknowledges support from the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. L. O. would like to acknowledge Pietro Bolli for his help with physical optics simulations during the testing phase of the BLAST06 telescope. We would also like to thank the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) staff for their outstanding work, the Precision Machining Group at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the support received from Empire Dynamic Structures in the design and construction of the gondola, Daniele Mortari for helpful discussions in the development of the Pyramid code, Dan Swetz for building the Fourier transform spectrometer, and Luke Bruneaux, Kyle Lepage, Danica Marsden, Vjera Miovic, and James Watt for their contribution to the project.Attached Files
Published - PASapj08.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 14246
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20090517-211252065
- NAG5-12785
- NASA
- NAG5-13301
- NASA
- NNGO-6G111G
- NASA
- Canadian Space Agency (CSA)
- Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Ontario Innovation Trust
- Puerto Rico Space Grant Consortium
- University of Puerto Rico
- NSF
- Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)
- Created
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2009-07-08Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field