Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project: Atmospheric data from the 2023 annular and 2024 total solar eclipses

The Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project (NEBP) is a student-centered STEM education and research initiative that leveraged the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse and April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse for authentic learning opportunities. The NEBP consisted of 53 student-led teams, including 19 teams that focused on atmospheric science research. These Atmospheric Science student teams flew up to 30 radiosondes during the annular and total solar eclipses, reaching altitudes of 100,000 ft - 115,000 ft (30,000 m - 35,000 m). In addition, NEBP teams collected high-temporal resolution surface-site data. This design provided surface, lower, and middle atmospheric observations with enough spatial and temporal sampling to contrast the meteorological differences before, during, and after the eclipse. The surface stations provided independent measurements of solar irradiance at the surface. All flight phases were led by students, including radiosonde initialization, balloon fill, launch, real-time data quality checks, and preliminary data analysis in the field. This dataset is for the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse flights. Visit eclipse.montana.edu for more NEBP information. 

Methods
This dataset was collected on April 7-8, 2024 by Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project student teams, who collected atmospheric science data on high altitude balloon flights. These teams launched radiosondes, or small standardized commercial off-the-shelf payloads of less than 190 grams. These collected high-temporal resolution data up to 115,000 ft (~35,052 m) in altitude. Each NEBP atmospheric science team flew up to 30 radiosondes during the 2024 total solar eclipse. 

Student teams worked alongside faculty mentors, NASA subject matter experts (SMEs), and STEM professionals. The student teams participated in one of nine regional pods where they benefited from having an atmospheric science pod leader who offered technical support. Students collected data using Lufft weather stations and used Grawmet software to receive signals from the radiosondes. The SMEs and their teams quality controlled the data, where they identified and corrected errors in data sets (i.e., aligning naming configurations and ensuring uniform time stamps).