Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Loon sets stratospheric sustained flight record with 312 day balloon trip

Alphabet’s Loon, the company focused on creating new networking capabilities using stratosphere-based infrastructure, has set a new world record for a continuous stratospheric flight. One of Loon’s ultra high-altitude balloons flew for 312 days straight, beating the existing record of 223 days by a considerable margin, and nearly racking up a full year of sustained time aloft.

The balloon in question took off from Puerto Rico in May 2019, and then made its way to Peru where it took part in a service test for three months, it then headed south over the Pacific Ocean, and finally ended up in Baja, Mexico for a landing in March this year. Loon’s CTO Sal Candido said in a blog post that the record-setting flight that it’s the result of the company’s continued work on advancing its technology and pushing both hardware and software forward in new and innovative ways.

Part of that means learning as much as possible from balloons that break records like this one, and Candido points out that Loon has a unique advantage over more traditional high-altitude balloons designed for weather observation because it recovers just about all of them, and can study the best performers in extreme detail. That allows it to replicate and improve on what’s going right when balloons are staying aloft for long periods.

Long-lasting stratospheric balloons are useful because they mean that Loon can provide connectivity to target area for longer, at lower costs, which hopefully means more affordable connectivity for everyone, including those in hard-to-reach areas where ground infrastructure is prohibitively expensive. There’s plenty of additional potential for science, Earth observation and weather tracking/modelling, but Loon’s squarely focused on the connectivity piece of the puzzle at the moment, and replicating this will help tremendously in that regard.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted and monito
3 comments
Read more