Datensatz

Zusammenfassung

The STRATELEC (STRatéole-2 ATmospheric ELECtricity) project, funded by CNES, focuses on the deployment of new atmospheric electricity instrumentation on-board several Stratéole-2 stratospheric balloons. The STRATELEC project aims at

i) Documenting the electrical state of the atmosphere and the production of high-energy radiation for better understanding and modeling of the processes induced by thunderstorms through opportunity flights within the Stratéole-2 mission;

ii) Identifying state-of-the-art technologies to build the STRATELEC instrumentation package with new sensors in the perspective for implantation on stratospheric balloons, high-altitude aircraft, and even low-altitude drones;

iii) Contributing to additional scientific returns on any space mission dedicated to lightning detection and more generally to the study of electrodynamic couplings in the terrestrial atmosphere-ionosphere-magnetosphere system.

Five technical tasks are currently underway : 1) identifying the technologies needed to address the scientific objectives of the project and their Technology Readiness Level ; 2) assessing the requirements and mitigation plans to install the identified technologies on Stratéole-2 platforms for a deployment during the last Stratéole-2 campaign during winter 2025-2026 ; 3) developing, testing and operating STRATELEC instrumentation ; 4) assessing the probability of tropical convective clouds within Stratéole-2 flight domain ; and 5) characterizing the lightning activity along Stratéole-2 flights.

An overview of the STRATELEC scientific and technical objectives and the list of targeted observations will be first presented. The current status of the different technical tasks will be then discussed with a focus on the analysis of the lightning activity in the West Hemisphere as recorded during the first Stratéole-2 flights.