A new reeling technique for very long extension scanning in the stratosphere

A balloon borne winching system has been developed for extending a very long tether with payload down into the stratosphere and recovering it; this has been flight proven by being carried to an altitude of 40 km, lowering a 62 kg stratospheric photochemistry experiment 12 km at a descent velocity of ～6–8 m/sec and recovering it at comparable velocities. During the first flight, data gave no evidence of dynamic instabilities due to the system or the stratospheric interactions. The future utility of this payload is discussed with attention to the design factors that bound the range of performance of this type of system.