{"id":19060,"date":"2017-02-23T17:49:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-23T09:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/world-view-shows-off-its-hq-and-stratollite-platform-for-near-space-balloon-missions\/"},"modified":"2017-02-23T17:49:03","modified_gmt":"2017-02-23T09:49:03","slug":"world-view-shows-off-its-hq-and-stratollite-platform-for-near-space-balloon-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/world-view-shows-off-its-hq-and-stratollite-platform-for-near-space-balloon-missions\/","title":{"rendered":"World View shows off its HQ and Stratollite platform for near-space balloon missions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"World
The 100-foot-high red tower at World View\u2019s headquarters plays a part in testing the parasail for the company\u2019s hybrid balloon platform for stratospheric observations. (World View Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 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,\u201d said former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, World View\u2019s director of flight crew operations.<\/p>\n

World View CEO Jane Poynter said the key to the technology is the ability to control the company\u2019s uncrewed \u201cStratollites\u201d remotely to make them ascend or descend, hover over one spot for months at a time, or fly on a course around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really the secret sauce here,\u201d she told reporters today during a teleconference from the company\u2019s Arizona campus.<\/p>\n

This month\u2019s pathfinder mission, conducted with Ball Aerospace, sent up sensors that gauged the performance of World View\u2019s Stratollite and captured panchromatic imagery with 5-meter resolution.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GFdXBQPuznU&feature=youtu.be<\/p>\n

\u201cThe resolution is good enough to track individual vehicles on the ground,\u201d said Alan Stern, who serves as World View\u2019s chief scientist (as well as the principal investigator for NASA\u2019s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.<\/p>\n

At the end of the day\u2019s mission, the solar-powered instrument package sailed back to the ground gracefully, thanks to a remotely steerable parafoil system.<\/p>\n

Other ventures, such as JP Aerospace, have been experimenting with near-space stratospheric missions for more than a decade. Hardly a month goes by without an experiment somewhere that puts something interesting on a high-altitude balloon platform.<\/p>\n

<\/span> This is almost a dream boat.<\/span><\/p>\n

World View, however, aims to take the next step by conducting commercial stratospheric missions on a more or less regular schedule. High winds and bad weather typically rank among the biggest challenges, but World View can deal with those factors due to its Arizona locale, said Taber MacCallum, who is the company\u2019s chief technology officer as well as Poynter\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoughly every week or two, you get a really good window to launch,\u201d MacCallum told GeekWire.<\/p>\n

The balloons could also be launched from other sites \u2013 for example, to observe hurricanes or wildfires. MacCallum said the most promising locales for future flights include Jacksonville, Florida, and Spaceport America in New Mexico.<\/p>\n

Stern said solar-powered Stratollites could be used not only for long-term Earth imaging, weather monitoring and emergency response, but for astronomy as well. At stratospheric heights, cameras could gather infrared observations that would be impossible to get from the ground, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you put all that together, this is almost a dream boat,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n

During the teleconference, Poynter shied away from quoting prices for Stratollite missions, other than to say they would typically cost a tenth as much as an analogous mission using a high-altitude drone, and a tiny fraction of what a satellite mission would cost.<\/p>\n

One World View experiment, designed to study methods to control the high-altitude balloon\u2019s altitude, was funded last month by NASA to the tune of $300,000.<\/p>\n