NASA’s Mullenax balloon test flight carries student projects and camera technology

NASA launched its Mullenax Test Flight from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on Sept. 28, carrying university and student-built science projects and experimental smart-camera technology. The flight also gave meteorology and rigging personnel a platform for training and hardware testing, according to the agency. NASA identified it as the fifth balloon flight of its scientific balloon campaign.

The balloon lifted off at 7:57 a.m. Mountain Daylight Time, NASA said in a Sept. 29 report. The agency reported a float altitude of about 105,900 feet and a total flight time of 10 hours and 14 minutes. Those figures describe the flight; NASA did not report results from the projects or the camera technology in its post.

A separate fall 2026 operations list from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility identifies the mission as Mullenax Test Flight 767NT and marks it as flown. That record supports the flight’s completion, while NASA’s report supplies the launch time, altitude, duration and description of what was aboard.

A test flight with several purposes

NASA described Mullenax as a training and hardware-testing platform for personnel working in meteorology and rigging. Its report also says the balloon carried a mix of university and student-built science projects. The post does not identify the institutions or projects, so their individual objectives and measurements remain unspecified in the agency’s account.

NASA published its account on Sept. 29, the day after the launch. The distinction matters for this flight: its stated purposes included testing hardware and training personnel, yet the available report provides no findings from either activity. The completed flight is documented; the results of the work carried out during it have not been detailed there.

Where Mullenax fits in the campaign

The Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility’s fall 2026 list places Mullenax among several Fort Sumner flights. It lists Salter, CoLIC HL #2, the High Altitude Student Platform, known as HASP, and BOOP! ahead of Mullenax. The facility’s page marks those entries and Mullenax as flown, while its CORSAIR/WASP entry had no flown label when the page was retrieved.

NASA’s Sept. 29 report calls Mullenax the campaign’s fifth balloon. The facility’s list gives the flight its own designation, 767NT, and records its status. Together, those records place the test flight within the fall campaign without treating the purposes or results of other listed flights as findings from Mullenax.

The student ballooning context

According to the consortium, HASP can carry as many as 24 student payloads to approximately 36 kilometers, or roughly 118,000 feet, on flights intended to last 15 to 20 hours. Those are the student platform’s stated capabilities. They should not be read as specifications for Mullenax, whose reported altitude and duration were about 105,900 feet and 10 hours and 14 minutes.

The consortium says HASP flies annually from Fort Sumner with support from NASA’s Balloon Program Office and the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium. Student teams are not charged for flight seats, it says, although they must fund payload development and required documentation. That arrangement describes the separate HASP program; NASA’s Mullenax report gives no comparable terms for the projects on its test flight.

The consortium reports 213 student payloads and more than 1,959 student participants in HASP since 2006. Those historical totals show the scale of that program, but they are not a count of the people or projects aboard Mullenax. NASA has described the Mullenax payload only as a mix of university and student-built projects alongside the camera technology.