We present the details of the optical design, corrector system, mechanical layout, tolerances, pointing requirements, and overall performance of the sub-millimeter wavelength Large Balloon Reflector telescope (LBR).

The Optical Spectrograph and InfraRed Imaging System (OSIRIS) satellite instrument spearheaded by a team of researchers at the University of Saskatchewan has provided scientists with 13 years of information about the state of the atmosphere. The success of the mission has motivated further development of the technology in a next generation instrument called the Canadian Atmospheric Tomography System (CATS) to provide better spatial and spectral resolution through a successive satellite mission. This work details the development of a proof-of-concept prototype built to test the validity of the CATS optical design. This thesis project utilized the developmental model built for the OSIRIS mission. The major modification made to the instrument replaced the optical element that defines the instrument’s field of view. This new development transformed the original single line of sight utilized by the satellite based OSIRIS instrument into three separate fields of view, which increased the imaging capabilities of the instrument. The new system has improved spatial resolution by collecting spectral information from three separate regions in the atmosphere in a single exposure, as opposed to the single region imaged by the original system. The newly developed prototype was tested on the platform of a stratospheric balloon. This test platform offered the capabilities to make limb scattered measurements similar to those that are made by a satellite based instrument. However, from the balloon geometry, the instrument required an additional pointing system to redirect the line of sight over stratospheric tangent altitudes. The design and test of this pointing system is also detailed in this work.

The development of remote sensing satellite-borne instrumentation for the study of the Earth’s atmosphere has provided an immense increase in our understanding of atmospheric trends and processes. The Canadian built OSIRIS satellite instrument uses the limb scatter technique to measure scattered sunlight for the retrieval of vertical profiles of atmospheric species such as ozone. Recently, the next generation instrument, CATS, based on the OSIRIS design, is under development to continue OSIRIS measurements into the future. One key optical design change for CATS is the ability to measure simultaneously over multiple fields of view. However, this new optical design concept needs to be tested and evaluated. To achieve this, a prototype slit plate was installed into the preflight developmental version of OSIRIS, called OSIRIS-DM, for testing in the laboratory and on a stratospheric balloon. In this thesis work, an evaluation of the performance of this multi-slit instrument was undertaken through laboratory calibrations and limb scatter measurement collection. The calibration process includes a wavelength registration, a spectral point spread function analysis, a relative calibration and an absolute calibration, all performed with laboratory equipment. Along with laboratory calibrations, this thesis work involved preparation for the stratospheric balloon mission including the development of a flight ready electronic control and communication system to operate OSIRIS-DM during the mission. The upgraded instrument was launched on September 19, 2014, and ascended to a stable float altitude of 36.5 km. The collected flight measurements were used to evaluate the calibrations and general instrument performance. Overall, the laboratory calibrations proved to be sufficiently accurate and the measurement collection produced multiple spectra that may be used for atmospheric analysis in the future. These results show that the multi-slit design of the slit plate produces an instrument that can be reliably calibrated and implemented for limb scatter measurement collection.

The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) is a 1.8 meter Cassegrain telescope that operates in three bands (250, 350, and 500 μm), each with 30% bandwidth. The detection system is comprised of 280 silicon-nitride micromesh bolometers distributed on three focal plane arrays with 30”, 42”, and 60” FWHM (full width at half max) beam sizes, respectively. BLAST's goal is to study the evolutionary history and processes associated with star formation. Earth's atmosphere is opaque to submillimeter radiation and astronomical observations in this wavelength are best conducted at high altitudes. BLAST is designed to be flown above 99.5% of the atmosphere on a stratospheric balloon. BLAST has made three scientific flights and this thesis covers the last two. The second flight was made in 2006 from McMurdo, Antarctica and studied the evolutionary history and processes associated with star formation. For the third flight, BLAST was reconfigured as a polarimeter (BLAST-Pol) and was also launched from McMurdo in December 2010. BLAST-Pol's objective is to determine what role, if any, magnetic fields play in star formation. This thesis will describe the BLAST-Pol instrument and provide a summery of key observations made by the 2006 flight.

Nous avons développé un détecteur intégré à base d'une diode pour être embarqué dans un ballon stratosphérique afin de caractériser l'environnement radiatif atmosphérique. Le détecteur a été calibré avec une source Californium, et il a été pleinement caractérisé lors de tests sous faisceaux de neutrons qui produisent diverses particules ionisantes secondaires. Les sections efficaces différentielles de détection pour différentes énergies de faisceaux de neutrons sont avérées être en bon accord avec les simulations effectuées avec le code MC-Oracle. Nous avons effectué un certain nombre de vols en ballon stratosphériques (avec l'ESA et le CNES) et confirmé la corrélation entre le taux de comptage et de l'altitude. En outre, nous avons observé que l'environnement radiatif n'est pas isotrope et démontré le potentiel de notre outil pour étudier l'environnement radiatif atmosphérique. Ces résultats sont utiles pour estimer le flux de particules qui affecte appareils et systèmes électroniques à bord des appareils. / We developed an integrated silicon detector to be embedded in a stratospheric balloon in order to investigate the radiative atmospheric environment. The detector was calibrated with a Californium source, and it was fully characterized under neutron beams which produced various secondary ionizing particles. Differential detection cross sections for different neutron beam energies were shown to be in good agreement with simulations performed with the MC-Oracle code. We performed four stratospheric balloon flights (with ESA and CNES) and confirmed the correlation between the count rate and the altitude. Moreover, we observed that the radiative environment is not isotropic and demonstrated the potential of our tool for investigating the radiative atmospheric environment. These results are useful for estimating the particle flux that affects electronic devices and onboard aircraft systems.

The UnoSat Platform is a software and 3D structure platform built with Arduino Uno boardsthat allows easier implementation of a satellite project in a 1-n unit CubeSat format. It isdesigned to improve and speed up development of balloon - nanosat projects of the M2 TSImaster. It provides a 3D-printable Lego based structure that can be extended by stackingmultiple pieces on top of each other. The structure parts allow to quickly increase thenumber of Arduinos and add shields on top of already integrated Arduinos. Because ofthis, the structure allows for easy prototyping, and printed pieces can be reused in futureprojects. The platform also provides a communication system that is very efficient andreduces the possibilities of programming mistakes when implementing communication. Itallows serializing and parsing data into and from a binary format, provides protection againsttransmission errors via cyclic redundancy checksum and allows dynamically sized messagepayloads. Additionally, it supports one way or both ways communication not only between agroundstation and an embedded device, but also between two embedded devices. The codeon the embedded device is generated specifically for a communication configuration, whichmakes it very efficient in terms of processing and memory usage on the embedded device.

This thesis conducts research into different rechargeable battery technologies and their applicability to the high altitude balloon flights conducted at Esrange space center. The research focuses on the possible use of lithium ion batteries’, sodium ion batteries, nickel metal hydrate, and Metal hydridelithiumion batteries. Resulting in lithium ion batteries in 18650 cells being recommended. The thesis continues with a modular power distribution system architecture design. The system architecture is established with solarcharging capabilities, up to 1500W peak output power, over 600W continuous output power, multiple output voltages, more than six output channels, remote output power switching, and monitoring of power consumption. A prototype is built from this architecture on which limited testing is performed.The testing shines light on future improvements and displays proof of concept for some parts.