NASA Awards Near Space Corporation Funding to Advance Titan Balloon Research

Titan Balloon A Flagship class Titan Explorer mission is conceived with montgolfiere (hot air balloon) to circumnavigate the surface of Titan at jetliner altitudes, but allow occasional descents to the surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NSC PR — TILLAMOOK, OR  — Near Space Corporation (NSC), a leading innovator of terrestrial and planetary exploration balloon technology, has received a Phase Two NASA Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) award to fund work that will help enable future airborne exploration of Saturn’s moon Titan.  NSC’s winning proposal was among 85 selected from a total pool of 428 submissions.

The Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM), a proposed joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) effort, plans to send a Montgolfiere, or hot air balloon, to Saturn’s moon.  If implemented according to the mission baseline, TSSM will launch a spacecraft in 2020 that will insert a probe into Titan’s atmosphere in 2030.  The balloon component of that probe will function as a wind-driven, airborne sensor platform for approximately six months.  The research to be conducted under this two year Phase Two NASA SBIR effort will improve the ability to forecast the balloon flight characteristics on Titan.

About Near Space Corporation:  NSC is a small business headquartered in Tillamook, Oregon.  Its management team has more than 75 years of combined experience engineering, manufacturing, and operating high altitude balloons.  This includes the creation of a wide variety of platforms to support Earth atmospheric research, space technology development, and planetary exploration missions.  The company specializes in providing affordable solutions to NASA, NOAA, DoD, and commercial aerospace customers.