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Google Project Loon Still Flying Balloons
Caught two Google Project Loon balloons taking off near Santa Fe NM and are still in the sky HBAL616, HBAL617. Although the loon project was reportedly cancelled last January, the Balloons are still being flown. Hmm. (flightaware.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
HBAL616 just landed near Vaughn, NM after a 48 hour flight, while HBAL617 continues to explore the edge of the weather system in Oklahoma.
He said intelligence blues, 80,000 feet?
Quite interesting to look at the Flight Log to see how quickly it got up to 62,000 ft, etc
HBAL617 is NW of Tulsa moving at 16 mph to the east.
ARSTechica reported this past September that the Loon Project was spun off to a new company "Valyria." The startup seems to have a heavy US military focus right now, including an $8.7 million "commercial contract" with the US Defense Innovation Unit.
Information is available at the following websites:
ARSTechica article link: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/google-spinoff-aalyria-salvages-project-loon-technology-for-the-us-military/
Valyria website: https://www.aalyria.com
Assuming Valyria proves to be successful, we may continue to see the high altitude balloons on our piaware stations and flight aware.