The next stratospheric flight of the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III is planned for early summer this year. Today’s departure of the flight hardware from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany to the launch site beyond the Arctic Circle marks the beginning of the final and decisive phase of the mission. On site at the Swedish Space Agency’s Esrange Space Center near the city of Kiruna, the Sunrise team will spend the next two months preparing the telescope, scientific instruments, and gondola for their mission at an altitude of 35 kilometers. All work before and during the flight will be controlled from the Göttingen Operations Center at the MPS. Sunrise has already captured unique data from the Sun on two previous flights. The third flight in July 2022 had to be terminated due to technical difficulties. This year’s flight should be particularly exciting: the Sun’s activity cycle is currently heading towards solar maximum.
The flight of Sunrise usually takes around five to seven days, depending on the wind