NASA's Super Tiger balloon has been afloat for 46 days and on its third orbit around the South Pole.

Launched from McMurdo Station on December 8th, 2012, the 39 million cubic foot scientific balloon carrying its carrying its 6,000 pound payload has shatttered the previous record aloft of 41 days and 22 hours that was set in 2005. The balloon is scheduled to stay aloft another eight days before its flight is terminated at McMurdo station and its payload is retrieved.

The massive balloon is carrying the Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder experiment. The equipment measures rare heavy elements among the flux of high energy cosmic rays that bombard the earth from our Milky Way galaxy.

“It has taken eight years, but we are so excited about breaking the long duration balloon record. In addition, it looks like the Super-Tiger flight, which is still collecting science data, will raise the bar by a week or two,” said Debora Fairbrother, chief of the Scientific Balloon Program Office at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

“This is an outstanding achievement for NASA’s Astrophysics balloon team,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Keeping these huge balloons aloft for such long periods lets us do forefront science that would be difficult to do otherwise.”

The balloon has been circling the South Pole at an altitude of 127,000 feet above the surface, which is four times the altitude of commercial airliners. It is utilizing the stratospheric anti-cyclonic wind pattern that circulates from east to west around the pole to make its orbit around the pole. The balloon carrying the SUV-size payload is so large that it can fit 200 blimps inside.

NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Palestine, Texas, is responsible for launch operations and command and control of the balloon during flight. The logistical support for the operation and all other scientific operations in Antarctica are provided by the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs. The NSF Antarctic Support Contractor provides material suport to the NASA Balloon program.

You can monitor the real time flight tracks online at https://www.csbf.nasa.gov/antarctica/ice.htm