Alice Springs Ballooning Facility

NASA established the Alice Springs Ballooning Facility in the early 1970s.

Managed by CSIRO and operated by the University of New South Wales, the Ballooning Facility regularly hosts NASA and other international space agencies conducting stratospheric ballooning campaigns.

The space agencies fly stratospheric balloons carrying scientific instruments to the outer edge of earth’s atmosphere to conduct scientific experiments.

Alice Springs was chosen as it offers an ideal vantage point to observe our galaxy, has favourable wind conditions, and its remote location allows for easy recovery of the balloons following their descent to land.

Further information

Read about recent ballooning campaigns on the CSIRO website:

• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): A partnership as unlimited as space itself
• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA): Japan’s space agency joins us to take near-space balloons up, up, and away
• French Space Agency (CNES): Launching giant space balloons from the centre of Australia.