Mission Overview
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The BOPPS mission was a system development and demonstration to show that 
balloon-borne scientific payloads can provide a rapid response to a 
time-critical planetary science opportunity, such as observing and 
characterizing the volatiles in primitive Oort-cloud comets.

In February, 2013, NASA Glenn Research Center, the Johns Hopkins 
University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU-APL), and the Southwest 
Research Institute (SwRI) were directed by NASA to develop a balloon 
flight for conducting planetary science observations of the comet C/2012 
S1 (ISON) that would make a close approach to the earth in early November 
2013.  This was a fast paced high risk mission that, once developed, would 
be available to conduct new missions potentially every year – truly a new 
paradigm in NASA scientific ballooning, especially for conducting high 
value planetary science ‘Decadal’ measurements not possible from existing 
ground, air, or space assets.

The Balloon Observation Platform for Planetary Science (BOPPS) mission was 
the second flight of this concept. It launched from Ft. Sumner, NM, at 
08:20 on September 25, 2014, ascending to a float altitude of 130,000’.  
Its mission, to observe multiple comets and asteroids, commenced 
immediately after verifying the platform was fully operational. The main 
objective of BOPPS was to observe one or more comets, with the Oort Cloud 
Comet, C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), being of special interest.