NASA balloon payload lands in Texas field after New Mexico launch

A boxy piece of NASA equipment attached to a massive parachute landed in a wheat field near Edmonson in Hale County, Texas, last week after a high-altitude balloon launch from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, a local resident said. Ann Walter said she watched the car-size payload drift across the sky before it descended into her neighbor’s field and later spoke with officials from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, who located and recovered the hardware.

Walter described the parachute as roughly 30 feet across and said the payload resembled an SUV with NASA markings. She called the local sheriff’s office when she first saw it, and Hale County Sheriff David Cochran confirmed that NASA had contacted his office in search of the equipment. Walter said balloon-facility staff told her the instrument was launched a day earlier from Fort Sumner, about 140 miles, or 225 kilometers, west of where it landed.

Researchers from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility arrived with a truck and trailer to pick up the payload, Walter said. She and her family took photos and videos of the descent and recovery. “It’s kind of surreal that it happened to us and that I was part of it,” she said....