Wednesday

The demand for high-resolution near-infrared to near-ultraviolet space-based cluster observations is much higher than what can be supplied by existing and planned space missions. This demand can be eased with balloon-borne platforms, which provide access to space-like seeing and transmission without the prohibitive costs and long development timescales of traditional space missions. The low cost and repeatability of a balloon launch allow a platform to fly yearly, or even more often, in order to meet high demand. SuperBIT is a balloon-borne 0.5 m telescope, designed to exploit these space-like conditions to provide a stable diffraction-limited resolution over a wide field of view of 23' by 15'. In 2019 SuperBIT had its final engineering flight, during which it demonstrated that all technical specifications have been met, that the platform is science-mission ready and that SuperBIT has completed its purpose as a pathfinder experiment for a 1.3 m gigapixel-class balloon-borne observatory. SuperBIT is currently scheduled for a 30-100 night March 2022 flight with a focus on deep observations of 30 to 100 galaxy clusters (1 cluster per night).