  The Balloon-borne Large-Aperture Sub-millimetre Telescope (BLAST) will
operate on a Long Duration Balloon platform with large format bolometer arrays
at 250, 350 and 500 microns, initially using a 2m mirror, with plans to
increase to 2.5m. BLAST is a collaboration between scientists in the USA,
Canada, UK, Italy and Mexico. Funding has been approved and it is now in its
building phase. The test flight is scheduled for 2002, with the first long
duration flight the following year. The scientific goals are to learn about the
nature of distant extragalactic star forming galaxies and cold pre-stellar
sources by making deep maps both at high and low galactic latitudes. BLAST will
be useful for planning Herschel key projects which use SPIRE.
