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Alphabet’s Loon claims stratospheric flight record of 312 days


Alphabet’s high-flying Loon subsidiary is laying claim to a new flight duration record for its internet-beaming stratospheric balloons. The company said that it has beaten its own record of 223 days, which it announced in July last year, by nearly three months.

The announcement comes as myriad public and private entities seek new ways to expand internet coverage to the farthest reaches of Earth. Constellations of micro-satellites from companies like Amazon and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are competing to bring connectivity to hard-to-reach places, while last week Microsoft launched Azure Space to make its cloud unit “the platform and ecosystem of choice” in this burgeoning space race, similar to a new business Amazon launched just a few months previous. Bill Gates also recently led a $85.2 million investment in satellite antenna company Kymeta, which helps equip any vehicle or vessel with internet access.

While there has been a lot of activity in the low earth orbit (LOE) satellite realm of late, Loon balloons fly at a much lower altitude and thus can provide an LTE service directly to consumer devices, bypassing the need for the costly terminals that satellites much higher up rely on. Also, given that Loon’s vehicles are located closer to Earth, this reduces the data transfer latency for internet-connected devices on the ground.

Moonshot

Google’s parent company Alphabet spun out of Loon as an in independent entity back in 2018, after five years as one of its so-called “moonshot projects.” Loon balloons travel in the stratosphere at an average of 20km above the Earth, where the varying conditions affect the direction and speed of the balloons. To counter this, Loon uses algorithms and predictive models to move the balloons up and down until they find a favorable wind current and continue moving in their intended direction, while avoiding any restricted zones. This enables Loon to serve mobile network operators with expanded LTE coverage, covering remote areas or disaster zones where ground infrastructure has been damaged.

Given that the balloons are wind-powered, they can stay in the heavens for long periods of time without requiring power for continuous propulsion. The onboard electronics, including two radio transceivers, are powered by solar panels and a rechargeable battery.

Above: An Alphabet Project Loon balloon.

Image Credit: Screenshot

Loon said that it currently has a fleet of around 100 balloons that are active in the stratosphere today. One of its balloons launched from Puerto Rico in May, 2019, and traveled to Peru where it was tested as part of a pilot service for a three-month period. It then circumnavigated some 215,000km around the globe, eventually landing in Baja, Mexico in March this year — 312 days after it first left the ground.

“This new duration record is exciting not because we flew one balloon for 312 days, but because it is a very visible indicator that our efforts to make all of our flight systems last longer is working,” Loon CTO Sal Candido wrote in a blog post.


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