EMIDSS-6 Mission Studies the Presence of Microplastics in the Polar Stratosphere

The module, launched from Antarctica, will also analyze the variables that drive climate change.

The aerospace challenge of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) continues as the EMIDSS-6 (Experimental Module for the Iterative Design for Satellite Subsystems version 6) completed an 11-day journey around the world.

The module departed from the South Pole aboard the Salter Test Flight Universal (STFU) platform from the U.S. McMurdo Scientific Station in Antarctica to study the presence of microplastics in the polar stratosphere, as well as to analyze the variables that contribute to climate change in this inhospitable region of Earth.

This mission, along with the previous EMIDSS-5, aims to design and develop instrumentation for future deployment in orbital space vehicles, particularly low-Earth orbit CubeSats such as TEPEU-1. Additionally, EMIDSS-6 measured variables such as humidity, temperature, and radiation.

With an ambient temperature of -30°C on the icy surface, the mission led by Polytechnic scientists commenced at 4:00 PM (Mexico City time) on December 21—11:00 AM in New Zealand— from the U.S. space agency’s scientific base on the southern tip of Ross Island, approximately 3,864 kilometers south of New Zealand and 1,360 kilometers north of the South Pole. The mission concluded on January 2, 2025, at 4:14:14 AM (New Zealand time).

Dr. Mario Alberto Mendoza Bárcenas, project leader and researcher at IPN’s Aerospace Development Center (CDA), stated that on January 2, a long-held dream was realized: the Polytechnic’s participation in NASA’s Long-Duration Balloon (LDB) Program, which completed a full circumnavigation of Earth from the polar cap. This mission was one of NASA’s longest of its kind. It was originally expected to last eight days, but it exceeded expectations with an 11-day duration.

He recalled that in his childhood, he was fascinated by the French writer Jules Verne’s novels Around the World in Eighty Days (1872) and From the Earth to the Moon (1865), which sparked his imagination about exploring new worlds, cities, people, and cultures—at a time when humanity had not yet considered building rockets or satellites. “For this reason, this latest mission was a dream come true and the result of years of hard work, starting with the Polytechnic’s first participation in 2019 from the U.S. scientific base in New Mexico, all the way to the South Pole.”

Mendoza Bárcenas reported that the STFU platform, identified by navigation codes W11.82-1E (CSBF #1377, Flight 749N), had a total weight of 908 kilograms. Its flight lasted 11 days, 6 hours, and 57 minutes, with a float time of 11 days, 3 hours, and 36 minutes.

According to initial data from EMIDSS-6, supported by NASA’s onboard navigation systems, the module's trajectory was confirmed to have included the Arctic Ocean. This allowed for the validation of electronic instrumentation under extreme conditions, as well as the testing of mechanical and thermal protection components developed by faculty and students from the Institute and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) using low-cost commercial devices.

The first results confirm that the aerospace module reached an average altitude of 37,490 meters during its journey around the planet, recording minimum average temperatures of -7°C and a maximum of 29°C during the float phase. This occurred within the day/night cycles in which the module remained in the polar stratosphere at a barometric pressure lower than 0.01 atmospheres.

The professor from the Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica (ESIME), Zacatenco Unit, highlighted that thanks to collaborative efforts with NASA experts, it was possible to adjust the thermal design of the instrument, considering specific factors of that region of Earth, such as a solar constant of 1410 W/m², an albedo factor of 0.66, and a terrestrial infrared flux value of 190 W/m².

This preliminary information supports the hypothesis regarding the survival of commercial-grade electronic components in the troposphere (the atmospheric layer closest to Earth’s surface), primarily due to the short exposure time in that atmospheric zone. However, for exposed external components (such as mechanical parts) directly subjected to these conditions, cold air convection could be significantly crucial to their survival.

The expert explained that engineers assigned to the Scientific Balloon Program are currently in the process of recovering the onboard computer memory cards for data extraction and analysis. This will contribute to climate change studies and the identification of pollutant particles and microparticles in the atmosphere of this remote region, with the support of experts from IPN’s Centro de Investigación en Computación (CIC).

He reported that the STFU platform landed 110 nautical miles (equivalent to 203.72 kilometers) from the launch base, within NASA scientists' recovery range, due to weather conditions caused by polar vortex currents (a persistent cyclone in Earth’s polar regions located in the middle and upper troposphere and the stratosphere). Fortunately, after multiple attempts to recover the payload, engineers successfully retrieved the suborbital platform.

Despite the damage sustained by EMIDSS-6 during descent and landing on icy terrain, which hindered the STFU platform’s recovery, it is expected that some of the data from the cameras and flight computers can still be salvaged.

Mendoza Bárcenas noted that in mid-December 2024, the Annual Long-Duration Balloon Campaign in Antarctica began from the launch operations center near the McMurdo Station of the U.S. National Science Foundation on the Ross Ice Shelf.

It is important to emphasize the logistical and technical challenges of launching a suborbital platform from Antarctica. For this mission, in addition to the STFU platform, the launch of the General Anti-particle Spectrometer (GAPS) was planned. However, after five attempts and due to adverse weather conditions, its launch was canceled for safety reasons on December 31, 2024.

He reported that in July 2024, the integration of the Institute’s sixth module was completed at the Palestine, Texas base. Starting on November 1, the space agency's team of experts began integrating the space missions, including EMIDSS-6.

The researcher from the Aerospace Development Center (CDA) emphasized that the Polytechnic’s sixth mission with NASA will not only strengthen institutional strategies for international collaboration among the leading academic institutions involved, such as IPN and UNAM but also mark a historic opportunity for the Mexican aerospace sector in contributing scientific instrumentation, paving the way toward national technological sovereignty.

Furthermore, this sixth mission with NASA, and the first in this region of the Earth, represents a historic milestone for both the Polytechnic and Mexican educational institutions. It will set precedents that provide practical experience and climate change data from the region, as well as facilitate the development and testing of Mexican space technology, which will be used in the design and production of future satellites.

Mendoza Bárcenas reminisced that when he watched the series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan, he became eager to learn about NASA and explore space. Years later, he would achieve this as a scientist from the Polytechnic, participating in a mission from such an inhospitable place as Antarctica.