New CMB experiments are being proposed and built with the goal of eventually resolving the B-mode polarization pattern imprinted in the CMB from a stochastic background of gravitional waves left over from an inflationary epoch in the very early universe. It has been widely acknowledged that the ability to resolve the B-mode polarization pattern in the CMB will require a more sophisticated understanding of the obscuring galactic foreground emission than what currently exists. Of the various galactic foregrounds, synchrotron radiation is identified as both the most polarized, and the most complicated in terms of spectral and spatial variability. The COsmic Foreground Explorer (COFE), described in this dissertation, is a NASA funded balloon borne mission to map polarized galactic foreground emission in two frequency bands, one centered at 10 GHz and the other at 15 GHz. These frequency bands make COFE particularly sensitive to polarized synchrotron radiation, and the separation between these two frequency bands facilitates the discrimination of the synchrotron component from the CMB and other foreground sourced such as free-free emission and spinning dust. COFE was successfully launched in September of 2011, and acquired data during a 22 hour flight. COFE is currently being reconfigured to acquire additional data from a high altitude, ground based observatory.