Tag: Balloons

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World View settles into Spaceport Tucson

Spaceport Tucson
The Breitling Jet Team flies over Spaceport Tucson in October. (World View Photo)

Arizona-based World View Enterprises is settling into its new offices at Spaceport Tucson and gearing up for what could be a high-flying year ahead.

World View offers a flight system that uses high-altitude balloons to loft payloads, and eventually people, beyond 100,000 feet in altitude. That height isn’t anywhere near the internationally accepted boundary of outer space, but it’s high enough to conduct weather research and provide an astronaut’s-eye view of the Earth below.

The company is already testing balloon platforms known as “Stratollites” that could do some of the work traditionally performed by satellites. Eventually, World View plans to take passengers up on hours-long flights, at a price of $75,000 a seat.

In January, World View struck a $15 million deal with Pima County for construction of Spaceport Tucson, which includes a headquarters and manufacturing facility as well as a 700-foot-wide circular balloon launch pad. The deal was contingent on the facility being ready by the end of this year.

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Balloons rise up on the strato-frontier

Project Loon
Project Loon’s balloons are getting better at staying in one place. (Credit: Project Loon via YouTube)

Drones, satellites and rocket planes are all well and good for high-flying missions, but sometimes the best craft for the job is a balloon.

Google’s Project Loon, for example, is enlisting machine learning to pilot its experimental data-beaming balloons through the stratosphere. And other ventures are using high-altitude balloon platforms to conduct missions traditionally associated with suborbital rocket launches.

Get a quick rundown on three ventures that are pushing the envelope.

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World View pivots to balloon-borne ‘Stratollites’

Image: World View balloon
World View is working on balloon-and-parafoil systems that could carry payloads into the stratosphere, as shown in this artist’s conception. (Credit: World View Enterprises)

World View Enterprises made a splash with its plans to send tourists up to the stratosphere, but now it has a more down-to-earth focus: using balloons to send up satellite-style payloads for months-long missions.

The tours are still part of the Arizona-based company’s business plan, CEO Jane Poynter said today at the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace 2016 conference in Seattle. The time frame for testing a full-size mockup of the Voyager crew capsule has been pushed back, however.

In January, Poynter said the flight test would take place in mid-2016. Today, she said that test would be conducted early next year instead.

In the meantime, World View is ramping up its “Stratollite” system i(“Stratosphere” plus “Satellite”). The program involves attaching payloads to a high-altitude balloon, lofting them up beyond 100,000 feet in altitude, and letting them float above the clouds to relay signals, capture imagery, gather weather data or perform other functions that are typically done by satellites or large unmanned aerial vehicles.

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World View balloon venture picks chief pilot

Image: Ron Garan
NASA astronaut Ron Garan floats in the International Space Station’s Cupola in 2011. (Credit: NASA)

Former astronaut Ron Garan has a new vantage point for sharing what he calls “the Orbital Perspective”: his position as chief pilot for World View Enterprises.

Arizona-based World View wants to give passengers a near-space experience, by sending them up in a pressurized capsule that’s lofted to heights beyond 100,000 feet by a high-altitude balloon. During a leisurely ascent to the atmosphere, passengers would get a space-like view of the Earth below, with the black arc of space above. Then the capsule would be cut loose from the balloon for a parachute-assisted descent and landing.

Cost for the trip? $75,000.

Garan told GeekWire that his job will be to ensure the “safe accomplishment of all aspects” of flight – not only for the passenger flights in the future, but for the remote-controlled flights that are going on now.

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Pegasus will put you in touch with stratosphere

Image: Pegasus I view
The sun shines above the clouds in a view captured by the Pegasus I balloon experiment. (Credit: MIcrosoft)

How high can the Internet of Things go? Microsoft Research plans to extend the IoT into the stratosphere with its Pegasus II high-altitude balloon experiment, and you’re invited to take a virtual ride.

The flight will build on years’ worth of research into creating networks that can take advantage of Microsoft Azure cloud services, even when part of the network is above the clouds.

Pegasus I sent a balloon from Othello, Wash., to an altitude of 100,000 feet in January 2015. The communication system experienced some glitches, but Microsoft Research’s Project Orleans team eventually recovered the instrument payload and extracted data that helped them prepare for the Pegasus sequel.

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World View’s spaceport plan gets $15 million lift

Image: World View balloon
World View’s Voyager capsule would rise into the stratosphere at the end of a high-altitude balloon, with a parafoil used to aid in its descent. (World View Enterprises illustration)

World View Enterprises’ plan to send tourists from Spaceport Tucson into the stratosphere in a balloon-borne capsule won a $15 million vote of support today from Arizona’s Pima County.

In a 4-1 vote, the county Board of Supervisors approved a plan to build the spaceport for World View’s use by the end of the year. World View is working on a pressurized Voyager capsule that would rise to 100,000 feet beneath a high-altitude balloon and give passengers a leisurely space-like view – all for the price of $75,000 a person.

World View CEO Jane Poynter told GeekWire that today’s vote of support signals that Arizona has joined the likes of Florida, California, New Mexico and Texas on the commercial space frontier. “We’re really seeing an inflection point in this whole space tech area,” she said.

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