James. H. Adams Jr., Denis Allard, Phillip Alldredge, Luis Anchordoqui, Anna Anzalone, Mahdi Bagheri, Matteo Battisti, Roberto Bellotti, Alexander Belov, Mario Bertaina, Peter Bertone, Sylvie Blin-Bondil, Jordan Bogdan, Julia Burton Heigbes, Francis Cafagna, Rosella Caruso, Marco Casolino, Karel Černý, Mark J. Christl, Roberta Colalillo, Hank J. Crawford, Alexandre Creusot, Austin Cummings, Julia Desiato, Rebecca Diesing, Alessandro Di Nola, Toshikazu Ebisuzaki, Johannes Eser, Francesco Fenu, Silvia Ferrarese, George Filippatøs, William W. Finch, Flavia Flaminio, S. Flannery, Claudio Fornaro, Noah Friedlander, Duncan Fuehne, Christer Fuglesang, Srikar Gadamsetty, Diksha Garg, Eleanor Gazda, Alessio Golzio, Fausto Guarino, Claire Guépin, Tobias Heibges, Eleanor G. Judd, Luke Kupari, Pavel A. Klimov, John F. Krizmanic, Viktoria Kungel, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Marco Mignone, Massimiliano Manfrin, Wlodzimierz Marszał, John N. Matthews, Kameron Mehling, Marco Mese, Stephan S. Meyer, Hiroko Miyamoto, Alexey S. Murashov, Jane M. Nachtman, Angela V. Olinto, Yasar Onel, Giuseppe Osteria, A. Nepomuk Otte, Beatrice Panico, Etienne Parizot, Tom Paul, Miroslav Pech, Francesco Perfetto, Lech W. Piotrowski, Zbigniew Plebaniak, Jonatan Posligua, Matthew Potts, Guillaume Prévôt, M. Przybylak, Pat Reardon, Mary Hall Reno, Marco Ricci, Oscar F. Romero Matamala, Fred Sarazin, Petr Schovánek, Viktoria Scotti, Kenji Shinozaki, Jorge F. Soriano, S. Stephanoff, Patrick Sternberg, Ben K. Stillwell, Jacek Szabelski, Yoshiyuki Takizawa, Daniil Trofimov, Fredrik Unel, Valerio Vagelli, Laura Valore, Tonia M. Venters, John Watts Jr., Lawrence Wiencke, Hannah Wistrand, Roy Young

The Extreme Universe Space Observatory on a Super Pressure Balloon 2 (EUSO-SPB2) is a pathfinder mission toward a space-based observatory such as the Probe of Extreme Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (POEMMA). The aim of POEMMA is the observation of Ultra High Energy COsmic Rays (UHECRs) in order to elucidate their nature and origins and to discover $\gtrsim$ 20 PeV very high energy neutrinos that originate from transient and steady astrophysical sources. EUSO-SPB2 was launched from W\=anaka New Zealand on May 13th, 2023 as a NASA Balloon Program Office test flight. The mission goals included making the first near-space altitude observations of the fluorescence emission from UHECR-induced extensive air showers (EASs) and making the first direct Cherenkov light emission from PeV cosmic rays traversing Earth's atmosphere. In addition, a Target of Opportunity program was developed for selecting and scheduling observations of potential neutrino sources as they passed just below the Earth's limb. Although a leaky balloon forced termination over the Pacific Ocean after 37 hours, data was collected to demonstrate the successful commissioning and operation of the instruments. This paper includes a description of the payload and the key instruments, pre-flight instrument characterizations in the lab and in the desert, flight operations and examples of the data collected. The flight was too short to catch a UHECR event via fluorescence, however about 10 candidate EAS events from cosmic rays were recorded via Cherenkov light.