Shipping delays have meant the American space agency has been left short of time to meet its March 15 launch date.
Wanaka Airport manager Ralph Fegan told the Otago Daily Times yesterday some of the project's containers were ''bumped off a ship somewhere along the way''.
However, everything was now on site and nine Nasa staff were working flat out on electronic and communications equipment in a hangar at the airport.
The ''ultra-long-duration balloon'' itself is still in its specially constructed steel box, which is about a quarter the size of a shipping container.
''It's a specially constructed box so that no bloody forklift throughout the world can wreck it,'' Mr Fegan said.
When the balloon is inflated with 0.4 million cubic metres of helium gas on launch day, it will expand to the size of a rugby pitch.
Some have compared it in size to the Dunedin's Forsyth Barr Stadium.
The balloon is capable of carrying four tonnes of scientific equipment to an altitude of 33km and holding it there for 100 days.
The equipment provided data on such things as the ozone layer and cosmic rays.
Next month's launch is a test only and the balloon will not carry the equipment.
The balloon will be launched early in the day, in very low winds, and for safety reasons the airport will be shut down for about two hours.
Mr Fegan will show the Wanaka Community Board a DVD about the balloon programme today and he will speakto Wanaka groups about the launch over the next few weeks.
