ASTHROS Mission: NASA to use football stadium-sized balloon to study Cosmos

Likely to be launched in December 2023 from Antarctica, ASTHROS will spend about three weeks drifting on air currents above the icy southern continent

NASA has started work on a new mission to send a telescope, on a football stadium-sized balloon, high into the stratosphere to observe wavelengths of light invisible from the Earth. The mission will try to find answers about formation of giant stars in the galaxy.

The telescope mission called Astrophysics Stratospheric Telescope for High Spectral Resolution Observations at Submillimeter-wavelengths (ASTHROS) is likely to be launched in December 2023 from Antarctica. It will spend about three weeks drifting on air currents above the icy southern continent, said the American space agency on Wednesday. 

Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, ASTHROS will observe