This is a collaborative experiment between NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Louisiana State University, University of Washington, University of Alabama in Huntsville and University of Tokyo, Japan. The experiment involves the long duration balloon borne flight (approximately 1 to 2 weeks) of blocks of sensitive photographic emulsion from McMurdo, Antarctica. The interaction of extremely high energy (1-1000 TeV) cosmic rays with the emulsion chambers allows the investigators to study the chemical composition and energy spectra of the cosmic rays, and also allows study of nuclear interactions at these very high energies. This is part of an ongoing series of such experiments, but the first from Antarctica, of the Japanese-American Cooperative Emulsion Experiment (JACEE). The flight is also intended as a test for a similar experiment that is scheduled to fly on Space Station Freedom as part of Astromag.
