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World View shows off pics from high-flying balloon

Stratollite image
A photo shows how World View’s Stratollite balloon-borne platform could keep watch on a commercial facility from a stratospheric vantage point. The inset shows a passing airplane. (World View Enterprises Photo)

World View Enterprises’ first near-space pictures demonstrate how the Arizona company’s balloon-based imaging platform can rival satellite views.

The photos were released today in conjunction with the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Colorado.

Tucson-based World View is working on what it calls its Stratollite system, which puts scientific instruments on a platform that’s lofted into the stratosphere on the end of a helium-filled balloon. Images and other types of data can be downlinked from on high in real time, or stored for recovery when the platform descends.

“Coupled with Stratollite’s game-changing ability to persist over areas of interest for days, weeks, and months on end, the ability to capture real-time images like these will unlock unprecedented applications and markets for the Stratollite,” Jane Poynter, World View’s co-founder and CEO, said in a news release about the newly released images.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

By Alan Boyle

Mastermind of Cosmic Log, contributor to GeekWire and Universe Today, author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference," past president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

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