SIDERALE and BIT: a small stratospheric balloon experiment for polar gamma background

The paper describes the SIDERALE experiment that was hosted as a piggy back payload on SoRa LDB (Sounding Radar Long Distance Balloon) mission by the Italian Space Agency (ASI). SIDERALE was aimed at testing a detector for high energy astrophysics applications based on a 4x4 pixel CZT solid state sensor. An onboard data handling computer, a mass memory and a power supply units were integrated in SIDERALE. Furthermore an innovative telemetry system BIT (Bi-directional Iridium Telemetry) was used in order for SIDERALE to be autonomous and independent from the hosting payload. In the paper a preliminary analysis of flight and scientific data is discussed.