[Astro] Fwd: Cosmic rays balloon experiment

[Meghan Gray (staff)]

Hi all,

Are there any hidden experts in the group who might have more knowledge of cosmic ray/atmospheric physics than I do?

If so feel free to contact the student below directly.

Thanks,
 Meghan


Begin forwarded message:

From: Harry Szpuk <psyhs14 at nottingham.ac.uk>
Subject: Cosmic rays balloon experiment
Date: 29 September 2025 at 12:20:56 BST
To: "Meghan Gray (staff)" <meghan.gray at nottingham.ac.uk>
Cc: "space at uonsu.com" <space at uonsu.com>

Hi Meghan,

I'm a computer science student working on a competition (ESA BEXUS) for the space society and I'm need some advice on an experiment I'm proposing.
I'm designing an experiment for a high altitude balloon, that will reach 25-30km into the atmosphere and will have a total flight duration of 4-5 hours.

The experiment will observe the relation of radiation intensity (from cosmic rays entering the atmosphere) to single upset events (SUEs) in computer memory chips (such as DRAM or maybe a SSD).
A single upset event is when a bit in computer memory is flipped, from 0 to 1 or 1 to 0, and is a known issue with electronics in space caused by energetic pions, neutrons, and protons.

I and other members of my team have done some research towards finding whether cosmic rays at this altitude are present and frequent but we struggled to find a conclusive answer.

I would appreciate any help in determining the viability of this experiment.

I've written up more information about the conditions of the balloon flight below:

The helium balloon will be launched from the Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden.
It will ascend at a speed of 5 m/s for approximately 1.5 hours before entering a float phase.
It is guaranteed that the balloon will float at an approximate altitude of 30km for at least 1 hour (though the balloon may potentially last up to 3 hours depending on flight conditions).
The balloon will then descend.
 [image.png]
[altitude duration of BEXUS 23 as provided in the BEXUS user manual]

Thank you,
Harry Szpuk

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