Tag: Balloons

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World View’s drone balloon finishes 5-day flight

World View Stratollite balloon
World View’s Stratollite test balloon rises from Spaceport Tucson. (World View Photo)

World View Enterprises has executed its longest stratospheric balloon flight ever, steering a solar-powered payload through five days’ worth of testing at altitudes in excess of 55,000 feet.

The high-altitude outing marked the Arizona-based company’s first launch from Spaceport Tucson, and a significant milestone in its plan to fly commercial “Stratollite” missions.

“This is an enormous leap in our development program, and we are certain the Stratollite is going to forge a new path in how we observe, react to and collect data about our planet,” World View co-founder and CEO Jane Poynter said in a news release.

The Stratollite concept aims to provide many of the capabilities of a satellite at a cost that’s potentially orders of magnitude less, thanks to World View’s remote-controlled, balloon-borne platform.

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World View does its first Spaceport Tucson liftoff

Balloon liftoff
A high-altitude balloon is inflated in preparation for World View’s launch from Spaceport Tucson in Arizona. (World View Photo)

World View Enterprises today executed its first balloon liftoff from Spaceport Tucson, the Arizona facility that it expects will be the home base for satellite-like “Stratollite” missions to the stratosphere — and, eventually, tourist flights as well.

“Spaceport Tucson, the first-ever purpose-built stratospheric launch facility in the world, is now open for business,” World View co-founder and CEO Jane Poynter said in a news release.

World View operates the facility on behalf of Arizona’s Pima County, which built the headquarters and production building as well as a 700-foot-wide circular balloon launch pad under the terms of a $15 million deal struck in 2016. That deal has been the subject of legal wrangling for more than a year.

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Seattle space sisters learn lots from eclipse

Loki Lego Launcher
The moon’s shadow can be seen in the background of this picture taken by a camera on the Yeung sisters’ Loki Lego Launcher. A picture of the Yeung family’s late cat, Loki, and a Lego minifigure of Amelia Earhart take up the foreground. (Rebecca and Kimberly Yeung Photo)

Not everything turned out the way pre-teen sisters Rebecca and Kimberly Yeung expected when they sent their Loki Lego Launcher balloon platform into the shadow of a solar eclipse. But that in itself was a big lesson for the stratospheric science team from Seattle.

The Yeung family – including 12-year-old Rebecca and 10-year-old Kimberly as well as their parents, Winston and Jennifer Yeung – drove westward from the launch site in Wyoming after the Aug. 21 eclipse and were due back in Seattle late tonight.

“There are many lessons that we learned, and we are continuing to talk about them as we continue our long drive home (our car ride home always seems to be our mission debrief session),” the girls wrote today on their blog.

The total solar eclipse was a teachable moment for the Yeungs as well as other citizen scientists participating in the Eclipse Ballooning Project.

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Balloon leak ends ‘space sandwich’ flight

World View Enterprises said its “Zinger 1” mission to keep a KFC chicken sandwich aloft in the stratosphere was terminated earlier than planned, due to a small leak in an altitude-control balloon system on its Stratollite platform. The company’s CEO, Jane Poynter, said today in a statement that the payload was brought down about 17 hours after the balloon launch on June 29 in Arizona. “Within the first few hours of flight, all system test objectives were met,” she said. Poynter added that the chicken sandwich “performed flawlessly.”

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Chicken sandwich flies to stratosphere

Chicken sandwich in stratosphere
A basket-shaped receptacle holds KFC’s Zinger chicken sandwich during its balloon flight into the stratosphere. (KFC Photo)

That’s one small step for high-altitude balloon research, one giant cheep for KFC’s Zinger chicken sandwich.

After one weather-related postponement, Arizona-based World View Enterprises sent the sandwich to the stratosphere today from a spot near Page, Ariz., and Lake Powell – mostly as a publicity gambit for the fast-food chain, but also as the first multi-day test mission for World View’s steerable balloon platform.

World View is developing its “Stratollite” balloon system as a low-cost alternative to satellites for Earth imaging, weather monitoring, surveillance and other applications.

“Today’s launch marks a truly historic milestone in our quest to open the stratosphere for business,” World View founder and CEO Jane Poynter said in a news release. “With the maiden voyage of our multi-day mission underway, I am extremely proud of the entire team and all we are learning to make space more accessible. It is especially exciting to have the public along for the ride through our very fun and exciting collaboration with KFC.”

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That’s one giant leap for a chicken sandwich

KFC balloon mission
A fanciful view shows KFC’s Zinger chicken sandwich in a “bucket satellite.” The actual bucket satellite won’t look quite like this. (KFC Illustration)

Yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken is planning to fly its Zinger sandwich up to the stratosphere and back on a World View balloon platform. But no, the mission isn’t merely a publicity stunt.

For World View Enterprises, the flight is expected to serve as a four-day shakedown cruise for its “Stratollite” system, which could eventually send military and commercial imaging payloads to the edge of the atmosphere for months at a time.

“When KFC first brought this to us, we had a good chuckle,” World View CEO Jane Poynter told reporters during a teleconference today. But then the Arizona-based company realized there could be a serious point behind the project.

“If you can fly a chicken sandwich to the edge of space … you can fly really just about anything,” Poynter said.

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Stratospheric protest aimed at Donald Trump

Protest tweet
A protest tweet is suspended from a balloon in the stratosphere. (ASAN via YouTube)

If someone can send a Donald Trump bobblehead tribute up into the stratosphere on a balloon, we suppose it’s only fair that a protest of President Trump’s policies can go up there, too. That’s what the totally unofficial Autonomous Space Agency Network did with its Aphrodite Program balloon launch of a printed-out tweet that’s addressed to Trump. The message? “LOOK AT THAT, YOU SON OF A BITCH,” with our beautiful planet seen in the background from a height of 90,000 feet. The command was inspired by the late Apollo astronaut Edgar Mitchell.

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World View shows off its Stratollite scheme

World View HQ
The 100-foot-high red tower at World View’s headquarters plays a part in testing the parasail for the company’s hybrid balloon platform for stratospheric observations. (World View Photo)

World View Enterprises declared its Tucson headquarters and its hybrid balloon technology to be ready for prime time today, in the wake of a pathfinder mission that captured satellite-type imagery from a stratospheric height of nearly 77,000 feet.

“This technology, sending high-altitude balloons up into the stratosphere, has essentially at this point, with the opening of this building, opened an entire new world of business and aviation,” said former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, World View’s director of flight crew operations.

World View CEO Jane Poynter said the key to the technology is the ability to control the company’s uncrewed “Stratollites” remotely to make them ascend or descend, hover over one spot for months at a time, or fly on a course around the world.

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Judge deflates deal for Arizona balloon base

Image: Balloon launch
World View’s team prepares a high-altitude balloon to carry a solar observatory payload into the stratosphere. (Credit: Carmen Noriega / World View)

A judge in Arizona has struck down Pima County’s $15 million development deal with World View Enterprises for a stratospheric balloon launch facility near Tucson.

The Feb. 2 ruling by Pima County Superior Court Judge Catherine Woods dealt a setback to World View’s plans to send tourists and payloads to heights above 100,000 feet.

The deal was forged more than a year ago, and led to the construction of a 700-foot-wide launch pad and headquarters facility for World View at Spaceport Tucson. The plan called for World View to lease the facility for 20 years, making annual payments ranging from $675,000 to $1.62 million.

World View’s employees began moving into the facility at the end of last year.

Months before the move-in, the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute filed suit against Pima County, claiming that the lease arrangement violated state laws. This week, Woods agreed.

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Balloons for Stephen Hawking’s 75th birthday

Near-space balloon for Stephen Hawking
Party balloons and a spacey view: Not a bad way to mark Stephen Hawking’s birthday. (NEAR via YouTube)

Famed British physicist Stephen Hawking has long wanted to go into space, so what better way to celebrate his 75th birthday than sending him a greeting from near-space?

The greeting comes courtesy of a stratospheric balloon experiment, executed at the Idaho-Oregon border by an Boise-based amateur science group called Near Space Education and Research, or NEAR.

The balloon-borne platform was festooned with a “Happy Birthday, Stephen Hawking,” plus a couple of party balloons for the occasion.

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