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MAXIS (MeV Auroral X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy):

Launched: January 12, 2000

Purpose of Flight:

To study electron precipitation from the magnetosphere into the
ionosphere. This electron ... precipitation creates the aurora
(northern and southern lights) along with X-rays which can be
observed with our balloon instrumentation. For this project, the
University of Washington provided a bismuth germanate (BGO)
X-ray spectrometer and two X-ray imaging cameras. One camera has
a pinhole collimator and the other has a coded aperture mask
collimator. Both cameras use scintillating crystals and
photomultiplier tubes to detect X-rays which are produced in the
aurora. The Berkeley balloon group provided a high resolution
germanium X-ray spectrometer. All of these instruments flew on
the INTERBOA campaign in 1996, where they observed an unusual
relativistic electron precipitation event.

The MAXIS balloon was terminated on January 30, 2000 at 22:13 UT
after a successful 450 hour flight.

Additional information available at
http://www.geophys.washington.edu/Space/SpaceExp/Balloon/Antarctica99/

[Source: University of Washington]

http://www.geophys.washington.edu/Space/SpaceExp/Balloon/Antarctica99/