With more than 50 years' experience in the field, The French Space Agency, CNES (Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales) goes on supporting a significant scientific ballooning program. In particular so because balloons give a unique and cost effective access to near space science. Recently, most of the systems had to be improved or renewed to comply with more stringent Safety requirements and to growing performance and reliability requirements from the scientific users. The upgrade of ground and flight infrastructures began by the zero pressure balloon systems (BSO), and will soon be implemented on long duration aerostats. This paper gives an overview of the CNES new capabilities and services for operational balloon activities, and their qualification status.A focus will be made on the results of the maiden flights, in 2013, from Timmins, Ontario, of the NOSYCA command and control system for zero pressure balloons. An outlook of the new stratospheric long duration flight systems and related missions studied at CNES will be given. The scientific launch campaigns of the last two years and the prospects for the near future will also be presented.-The recent BLPB campaigns (2012 -2013) in the frame work of the HyMeX-BAMED (HYdrogical Cycle in Mediterranean Experiment) and ChArMEx (Chemistry-Aerosol Mediterranean Experiment) international projects, and the prospects for the coming years. -The Strateole phase 2 project using SPB flotillas, currently in feasibility study phase at CNES (Phase A), and the preliminary architecture of the new system for long duration balloons.
II. Zero Pressure Balloon activitiesA. General presentation of NOSYCA Six years ago, facing the double constraint of having to upgrade or change an ageing Balloon command control system, and to comply with more stringent flight safety rules, CNES decided to develop a New Operational System for the Control of Aerostats, named NOSYCA [3] and [4]. Having to be fail safe regarding all critical functions, and in particular to guarantee the protection of the over flown populations, NOSYCA is a no single point failure system operated through 2 different communication links. An S-Band radiofrequency subsystem provides a high data rate telemetry (TM), and telecommand (TC), the main part of the TM rate being available for scientific data; this S-band link is backed up via an Iridium satellite TMTC link. Until now, the NOSYCA system has been developed for large zero pressure stratospheric balloons (BSO), capable of carrying a payload of up to one ton at an altitude of 40 km, for a duration of up to 24 hours. It is worth noting that not only the command control onboard and ground systems were designed to comply with the new reliability and safety specifications, but all of the other parts of the aerostats were also upgraded, through the BSO REVOL (BSO return to flight) endeavor, presented here below.In parallel with the new system development, and as former French launch sites, Aire/Adour and Gap Tallard, could no longer be used safely due to the growing population ...