ISAS/JAXA has completed its 2018 Australian scientific balloon experiments using a balloon release site in Alice Springs in Australia's Northern Territory. The balloon flight period for the experiments in this year was from March 25th through May 15th.

Three experiments were initially planned and the information on the two experiments, B18-02 experiment (the joint international observations of MeV gamma-ray objects by SMILE-II+) and B18-03 experiment (observations by GRAINE, a gamma-ray astro-imager with nuclear emulsion) can be found in the web pages below.
B18-02: http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/en/topics/001396.html
B18-03: http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/en/topics/001399.html

The other experiment B18-01 (observations by FITE, far-infrared interferometer) was canceled because weather conditions were not suitable for a balloon release until the end of the flight period.

ISAS/JAXA performed this experiments in agreement with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation of Australia (CSIRO). During the implementation of the experiments, much support was also received from the University of New South Wales. We would like to express our sincere thanks to all those who cooperated in the carrying out of these experiments.

Image of the balloon launch

The launch of the balloon for the B18-03 experiment