Loon balloon sets a new record of 312 flight days in Stratosphere

(Image: Loon)

Loon, the project to distribute internet through stratospheric balloons, said that one of its balloons set a record for the longest flight in the stratosphere at 312 days.

According to the company, the balloon took off from Puerto Rico In May of the last year, and it landed in Mexico in March 2020.

Loon aims provide Internet access via LTE in poorly developed areas or in areas with destroyed infrastructure due to natural disasters.

The project uses its stratospheric balloons all over the world, but for the sake of simplicity, it launches them from the US, from where they travel to the desired point using the air flow.

This approach is more convenient than deploying launch pads in each region, but it forces some of the flight time of the stratospheric balloon to be spent not on its direct mission, but on moving from North America to the required place.

Because of this, the company has been working for a long time to increase the flight time, analyzing the wear of the balloon’s walls and other parameters.

After they complete their mission, almost all stratospheric balloons land in a controlled manner in a given area, after which the company's specialists take them away.

In 2019, the company already set a record for atmospheric flight duration of 223 days, and has now increased it to 312 days. The flight ended in March, but the company decided to tell about it only now.

The stratospheric balloon HBAL703 took off from a launch pad in Puerto Rico in May 2019, then went to Peru, where it provided the Internet for three months.

After that, the balloon made a round-the-world flight in an easterly direction, and then for 7 months conducted maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean to perform navigation experiments.

On the day 312, the stratospheric balloon landed by parachute in the Mexican state of Baja California.

(Image: Loon)

The company notes that at the time of the announcement of the record, it had almost a hundred stratospheric balloons.

The balloons are equipped with an automatic dependent surveillance system ADS-B, which is also installed on all aircraft.

This system helps to monitor the balloons online (with services such as Flightradar). The only exception are the ones located in the ocean away from the coast and inhabited islands.

Sources:

• Loon: https://medium.com/loon-for-all/312-days-in-the-stratosphere-5c50bd233ec5
• YouTube: (see above)

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