Wednesday, May 16, 2018

World View Sends High Altitude Balloon Into Stratosphere

Tucson, Arizona-based World View, the venture-backed developer of stratospheric balloons designed to offer up low cost, persistent, high altitude observation of areas as an alternative to satellite imaging, sent a payload into the stratosphere on Wednesday. The company--which is backed by such investors as Accel Partners, Canaan Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners--said it sent an "important R&D mission" up from Spaceport Tucson on Wednesday morning, in a test of its operations to deliver real-time persistent data to its customers. World View is developing its balloons to provide observation of areas for "weeks and months on end"--something which is difficult to do today with satellites, which generally only pass over an area once or twice a day, at the most. World View did not say what kind of payload it launched with the high altitude balloon, which was drifting at around 65,000 feet near the border of Arizona and New Mexico late Wednesday evening.

World View posted a video of the launch on Twitter on Wednesday (embed below):

So smooth... 😎 pic.twitter.com/aTVex4ElU3

— World View (@WorldViewSpace) May 16, 2018

---