NASA’s first super pressure balloon (SPB) flight for its 2025 campaign was terminated soon after the agency’s second - and final - balloon was launched.

After 17 days in flight, with a journey that crossed South America and circled around Antarctica, the first SPB was safely terminated just before midnight on Sunday (May 4), ending in the Pacific Ocean around 1,300km east of New Zealand.

Around 12 hours earlier the second SPB lifted off from Wānaka Airport, starting a journey which could last up to 100 days.

“The picture perfect launch and ascent into float of our second super pressure balloon caps off a highly successful New Zealand campaign,” NASA balloon programme office (Wallops Flight Facility) chief Gabriel Garde said.

“To have both missions aloft and nearby one another is phenomenal for such a complex mission operation.

“Our launch team as well as all of the crucial support both onsite and remote enabled are what made this possible and we could not be more pleased.” 

The second helium-filled 18.8 million-cubic-foot balloon reached its operational float altitude of about 33.5 km above earth’s surface around two hours after launch.

At the time of writing the SPB was travelling northeast over the Pacific Ocean.

The mission will spend most of its time over water, though some land crossings will occur, NASA said.

Meanwhile, the first SPB mission has been deemed a “successful mission”, Gabriel said, despite the discovery of a hardware interface performance issue. 

'We conducted termination operations over open water to eliminate any risk to the public or the environment,” he said. “We were able to ensure all our viable data both on the science and support sides were telemetered down.”

“Following engineering assessments of the likely hardware issue, we performed mitigations and planning to reduce the likelihood of a similar issue occurring on our second flight of the campaign,” he said.

The public can track the second balloon in the Wānaka App: NASA Balloons

PHOTO: Wānaka App