NASA Scientific Balloons Prepare for 2026 Fort Sumner Campaign

NASA’s annual scientific balloon campaign is gearing up for its 2026 launch from the agency’s facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Six flights carrying scientific experiments, technology demonstrations, and student payloads are slated to take off beginning mid-August. These zero-pressure balloons, designed to remain in thermal equilibrium with their surroundings, will soar to altitudes where they escape Earth’s atmosphere, conducting research at 99.5% of its height.

This year’s campaign will commemorate the 20th flight of the High-Altitude Student Platform (HASP) for the second time. HASP carries payloads developed by student teams, with 17 teams slated to launch their prototypes for future CubeSats or larger payloads. This platform is a collaborative effort between the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium, NASA’s Astrophysics Division, the Balloon Program Office, and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Texas.

Four balloons will host technology demonstrations and secondary science experiments, including NASA’s Balloon Optimization Opportunity Payload (BOOP!) for the second year. BOOP! allows testing multiple technology instruments during flight for future missions. A new payload will study the Sun’s corona, utilizing the Wallops Arc Second Pointer (WASP) platform for sub-arc-second accuracy in pointing instruments at targets during flight.

Fans of the missions can track the balloons’ real-time altitudes and locations on NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility website throughout the 2026 Fort Sumner campaign.