The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) was a suborbital experiment designed to map magnetic fields in order to study their role in star formation processes. BLASTPol made detailed polarization maps of a nu
mber of molecular clouds during its successful flights from Antarctica in 2010 and 2012. We present the next-generation BLASTPol instrument (BLAST-TNG) that will build off the success of the previous experiment and continue its role as a unique instrument and a test bed for new technologies. With a 16-fold increase in mapping speed, BLAST-TNG will make larger and deeper maps. Major improvements include a 2.5 m carbon fiber mirror that is 40% wider than the BLASTPol mirror and ~3000 polarization sensitive detectors. BLAST-TNG will observe in three bands at 250, 350, and 500 microns. The telescope will serve as a pathfinder project for microwave kinetic inductance detector (MKID) technology, as applied to feedhorn coupled submillimeter detector arrays. The liquid helium cooled cryostat will have a 28-day hold time and will utilize a closed-cycle $^3$He refrigerator to cool the detector arrays to 270 mK. This will enable a detailed mapping of more targets with higher polarization resolution than any other submillimeter experiment to date. BLAST-TNG will also be the first balloon-borne telescope to offer shared risk observing time to the community. This paper outlines the motivation for the project and the instrumental design.
The Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope for Polarimetry (BLASTPol) is a suborbital mapping experiment, designed to study the role played by magnetic fields in the star formation process. BLASTPol observes polarized light using a tota
l power instrument, photolithographic polarizing grids, and an achromatic half-wave plate to modulate the polarization signal. During its second flight from Antarctica in December 2012, BLASTPol made degree scale maps of linearly polarized dust emission from molecular clouds in three wavebands, centered at 250, 350, and 500 microns. The instrumental performance was an improvement over the 2010 BLASTPol flight, with decreased systematics resulting in a higher number of confirmed polarization vectors. The resultant dataset allows BLASTPol to trace magnetic fields in star-forming regions at scales ranging from cores to entire molecular cloud complexes.
