Solar astrophysics students building instrument that will hitch a ride on NASA balloon

Students in the School of Physics and astronomy, under the supervision of Professor Lindsay Glesener, are building a solar x-ray spectrometer that is planned to fly on a NASA high-altitude balloon from Antarctica in late 2026 or early 2027. This "piggyback" mission will be strapped to the larger payload of the BALBOA  balloon as a cost saving measure. The group is receiving flight hardware now in anticipation of delivering the instrument in June. 

The Integrating Miniature Piggyback for Impulsive Solar Hard X-rays (IMPISH) instrument will investigate particle acceleration mechanisms during the impulsive phase of solar flares. IMPISH will capture subsecond (tens of ms) fluctuations in high-energy X-rays  across an energy range of approximately 20–200 keV during its 1-4  weeks of observation. The Impulsive phase, which typically comes at the start  of a solar flare, is a poorly understood phenomenon characterized by marked variations in X-rays as well as other measurable signals from the sun. 

In this phase, solar flares are releasing huge amounts of energy from the Sun’s magnetic fields and accelerating electrons up to near the speed of light. By studying the fast time variations in X-rays from the flares, Glesener’s group hopes to find out how these electrons are being accelerated. This will help to understand how solar flares work and what kicks them off.

The bulk of the work on IMPISH is being done by physics graduate students William Setterberg (Project Manager), Reed Masek, Dorcas Oseni, and Researchers Lestat Clemmer and Phil Williams, under Glesener’s leadership. The broader team includes scientists and engineers from Montana State University, the Southwest Research Institute, and UC Santa Cruz.