This was the only way to see inside the country before satellites, but as the unpowered balloons could only drift at random with the wind, they gathered little useful information.Ī Project Genetrix launch in 1956. The USAF’s Project Genetrix released spy balloons disguised as weather balloons over the Soviet Union in 1956, their downward-pointing cameras intending to photograph top-secret installations. Their ‘Fu-go’ balloons carried incendiary bombs at 30,000 feet in an unsuccessful attempt to ignite forest fires across the Pacific Northwest.Ī range of high-altitude balloon projects between 50,000-100,000 feet followed during the Cold War. Japanese scientists were first to harness intercontinental balloons for military purposes in 1944. Southern Command over Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. “We think this has the potential to be a game-changer for us: a great, long-duration, long-dwell surveillance platform,” said Admiral Tidd, Commander of U.S.

With a newly developed sensor that can measure wind patterns, and a design that can execute flight changes efficiently based on those readings, a Stratollite can change altitude, catch winds, and maintain position within 12 miles of a specified target for four days. Their gondolas can house daylight and thermal cameras, radar, radio frequency sensors, and solar panels. These giant pumpkin-shaped aircraft measure up to 800,000 cubic feet in volume. World View Enterprises, a private company which develops near-space technology for the Pentagon and NASA, calls their balloons Stratollites. Satellites fill some of the persistence gap, but low Earth orbit satellites 100-1,200 miles from the Earth’s surface only catch infrequent glimpses of a specific area, while satellites in geostationary orbit-meaning they travel with the Earth as it spins, staying above one location on the ground-are only useful for strategic applications like spotting ballistic missile launches.īalloons’ durability and carrying strength could help them cover the bases neglected by those craft. The ability to keep eyes on an area for days at a time with a low-cost platform would mean a huge increase in the military’s intelligence-gathering capability.Ī World View Stratollite balloon seen through a telescope at the Mt. “Even with something like the Global Hawk you only get about twenty hours over the area of interest, and less than that if they have to travel a significant distance to get there,” he says. Reconnaissance aircraft like drones and balloons are limited by how long they can survey an area of interest-an attribute Justin Bronk, analyst for the UK defense thinktank RUSI, calls persistence. The Pentagon is advancing its balloon program to put better eyes on a post-Afghanistan world marked by near-peer threats in Russia and China, and locally, it’s possible balloons will surveil the drug trade and smuggling networks via their unique integrated sensors and communications. The balloons come in the tradition of those used for artillery spotting in the Civil War, but they’re so high-tech today that they are sometimes mistaken for UFOs.

Near-space craft like stratospheric balloons lurk anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 feet, far above normal aircraft flight paths.

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