In a feature article detailing Dartmouth’s involvement in NASA’s BARRE (Balloon Array for RBSP Relativistic Electron Losses) mission, NASA explains that Millan and her students have been building payloads and testing hardware for the balloon launch that is scheduled to take place in January, 2013.
NASA notes that the BARREL mission “seeks to measure the precipitation of relativistic electrons from the radiation belts during two multi-balloon campaigns, operated in the southern hemispheres.”
“I’m proud of how much work my students did improving the mechanical design to make sure it would be faster to build,” Millan told NASA. “Every few minutes count. If some building process takes three minutes, that doesn’t sound like much, but multiply that by 45 and little things become significant. Now our process is streamlined. It’s almost like Legos—all the pieces just fit together.”
Read the full story, published on 5/29/12 by NASA.