The Balloon-Borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope Observatory

The BLAST Observatory is a proposed superpressure balloon-borne polarimeter designed for a future ultra-long duration balloon campaign from Wanaka, New Zealand. To maximize scientific output while staying within the stringent superpressure weight envelope, BLAST will feature new 1.8m off-axis optica...

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Published inarXiv.org
Main Authors Lowe, Ian, Coppi, Gabriele, Ade, Peter A R, Ashton, Peter C, Austermann, Jason E, Beall, James, Clark, Susan, Cox, Erin G, Devlin, Mark J, Dicker, Simon, Dober, Bradley J, Fanfani, Valentina, Fissel, Laura M, Galitzki, Nicholas, Gao, Jiansong, Hensley, Brandon, Hubmayr, Johannes, Li, Steven, Zhi-Yun, Li, Lourie, Nathan P, Martin, Peter G, Mauskopf, Philip, Nati, Federico, Novak, Giles, Pisano, Giampaolo, Romualdez, L Javier, Sinclair, Adrian, Soler, Juan D, Tucker, Carole, Vissers, Michael, Wheeler, Jordan, Williams, Paul A, Zannoni, Mario
Format Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Ithaca Cornell University Library, arXiv.org 02.12.2020
Subjects
Adiabatic demagnetization cooling
Demagnetization
High altitude
Inductance
Liquid helium
Monocoque structures
Observatories
Polarimeters
Proposals
Superpressure balloons
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Summary:The BLAST Observatory is a proposed superpressure balloon-borne polarimeter designed for a future ultra-long duration balloon campaign from Wanaka, New Zealand. To maximize scientific output while staying within the stringent superpressure weight envelope, BLAST will feature new 1.8m off-axis optical system contained within a lightweight monocoque structure gondola. The payload will incorporate a 300L \(^4\)He cryogenic receiver which will cool 8,274 microwave kinetic inductance detectors (MKIDs) to 100mK through the use of an adiabatic demagnetization refrigerator (ADR) in combination with a \(^3\)He sorption refrigerator all backed by a liquid helium pumped pot operating at 2K. The detector readout utilizes a new Xilinx RFSOC-based system which will run the next-generation of the BLAST-TNG KIDPy software. With this instrument we aim to answer outstanding questions about dust dynamics as well as provide community access to the polarized submillimeter sky made possible by high-altitude observing unrestricted by atmospheric transmission. The BLAST Observatory is designed for a minimum 31-day flight of which 70\(\%\) will be dedicated to observations for BLAST scientific goals and the remaining 30\(\%\) will be open to proposals from the wider astronomical community through a shared-risk proposals program.
ISSN:2331-8422