Eastern Michigan University program selected to participate in NASA-supported balloon project
YPSILANTI, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) - Eastern Michigan University's high-altitude weather balloon (HAB) program has been selected to participate in the Nationwide Eclipse Balloon Project (NEBP) funded by NASA.
According to the NEBP website, the project will immerse teams "in an innovative NASA-mission-like adventure in data acquisition and analysis through scientific ballooning during the Oct. 14, 2023, annular and April 8, 2024, total solar eclipses."
The project -- led by Montana State University -- is split into two categories -- engineering and atmospheric science. EMU will participate in engineering, which includes using balloon systems to live stream video to the NASA eclipse website and conducting experiments.
The university's HAB program, known as EMU Atmospheric Physics Exploration (APEX), was created by professors Dave Pawlowski and Tom Kovacs. The professors submitted a proposal and were selected to participate alongside 70 other teams from colleges including the University of Michigan, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Kentucky and Central Washington University.
The EMU team includes a total of 20 students from Pawlowski's physics courses and Kovacs' weather and forecasting course.
"For several years, high-altitude weather balloon launches were a part of my physics capstone course, offering students the unique chance to design and build payload systems (the structural system of a rocket) to explore the atmosphere," EMU physics professor Dave Pawlowski said in a press release. "It had been a few years since I had offered this and after having a conversation with Professor Kovacs, we decided it would be a good opportunity to restart the program for students."
The students will travel to the Southeast United States for the annular eclipse and either Ohio or Pennsylvania for the total eclipse.