Scientific Balloon Paper awarded The Best Paper Prize of JSASS

A research paper on a superpressure balloon titled “New Design Concept and Flight Test of Superpressure Balloon” (Journal of JSASS Vol. 49 No. 564) by Naoki Izutsu and others in Scientific Ballooning, Division of Space Systems Engineering was awarded the 11th Best Paper Prize of JSASS (the Japan Society for Aeronautical and Space Sciences) at the JSASS 33rd Annual Meeting on April 8. This award was such an honor as it was selected from among over 100 papers published in the Journal and Japanese/English Collected Papers of JSASS during the past year.

After the award ceremony where President Takayama gave a testimonial and medal to winners, each winner delivered a special lecture on the award research introducing its scientific significance. The award research by N. Izutsu and others intends to establish a robust governing principle in balloon designing by going back to basics and making a thorough review of the problems inherent in the conventional balloon design concepts. Furthermore, this newly established principle enabled the realization of a large superpressure balloon that has long been an issue in the field of scientific balloons, leading to a great success in terms of application. Although these achievements have already been recognized worldwide among balloon scientists, the award this time still was a great joy and honor to us as it signified the fact that research on balloons, a rather minor field of space science, has been acknowledged by the Society that covers an extensive area in aeronautical and space science.

August 6, 2002