High Altitude DC Electric Field Measurements Using Balloons

Electric fields can be used to provide explanations for various phenomena such as upper atmospheric lightning and aurora. Latex balloons will be used to fly a Langmuir double probe in Houston, Texas, and possibly in Fairbanks, Alaska. Special attention will be paid to orientation as to measure the correct component of E depending on the flight location and expected observable phenomena. The probes will be coated in an Aquadag mixture and held 6 ft from the central payload by carbon fiber tubes. This will be a continuation of the Undergraduate Student Instrumentation Project (USIP): Project Ultralight, in which scientific balloons were flown with the expectation of improving old instruments, testing current methods, and producing new technologies while keeping mass costs under 6 kg.