Flight Operations During The First Cream Balloon Flight

The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM) payload was launched from McMurdo Station, Antarctica on Dec. 16, 2004 and stayed aloft for nearly 42 days. The CREAM flight operation was unique from several perspectives. This was the first Long Duration Balloon (LDB) mission to transmit a significant fraction of science and housekeeping data collected (up to 85 kbps) in near real-time through the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) via a high-gain antenna, as well as keeping an onboard data archive. CREAM was controlled through a line of sight (LOS) transmitter from pre-launch until it went over the horizon, about 12 hours post launch, at which point commanding was transferred off the continent to the Science Operations Center (SOC) at the University of Maryland and NASA's Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) Engineering Support Center (ESC). Primary command uplink was via TDRSS, with Iridium serving as backup when the primary link was unavailable due to schedule or zone of exclusion (ZOE) traverse. We. describe CREAM operations during this record-breaking flight, with examples of how the near-continuous availability of command uplink and data down-link throughout the flight allowed a robust response to changing conditions on the payload.