NASA successfully launched its football stadium-sized Super Pressure Balloon (SPB) from New Zealand on Tuesday. The balloon is designed to fly for around 100 days, 1,10,000 feet (33.5 km) high above Earth's surface. The balloon carries a 2,500-kg payload to detect ultra-high energy cosmic rays from outer space. NASA has launched over 1,700 scientific balloons in 35 years of operation.