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This week, NASA plans to launch a prototype balloon from Alice Springs in
Australia that is designed to float 40 kilometres above the Earth and stay there
for 100 days at a time. The pumpkin-shaped Ultra-Long Duration Balloon is made
of a superstrong fabric to prevent the leaks that send other high-altitude
balloons Earthwards after two weeks. Long flights will lift instruments to the
edge of the atmosphere to pick up faint signals from space or observe rare
events. Louis Barbier of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center says this “will
offer the ability to do satellite-like experiments on balloons at…