Urban Sky’s Earth-imaging stratospheric ‘microballoons’ are ready for a close-up

Urban Sky, a Colorado-based company focused on collecting images and data of the Earth using small stratospheric balloons, says it is officially entering commercial operations after three years of operating partially in stealth and raising funding. The company says it is ready to serve customers with its balloons, which can be deployed from the back of a pickup truck.

The company offers what it calls "microballoons," high-altitude balloons that can float to the stratosphere carrying a small payloads and maintaining a constant position over an area. The balloons inflate to be the size of a small car garage in the air. That is much smaller than a typical balloon, which can cover a football stadium.

At a lower cost than comparable satellite imagery, Urban Sky envisions its technology being used for things like real-time wildfire monitoring, environmental changes, storm related property damage, and more. The founders of Urban Sky say they are ready to deploy their product regularly after conducting roughly 50 flight tests. Andrew Antonio, co-founder and CEO of Urban Sky, says that if a customer calls them, they can deploy and go get it.

Alan Eustace, a former executive at Google, hatched a plan to perform the world's highest skydive from underneath a balloon. The project was worked on by Antonio and Urban Sky co-founders. The team flies smaller balloons with cameras next to larger balloons for monitoring.

The balloons were going to be launched next to the balloons. There was a side-by-side comparison of what it was like to launch a balloon with a small amount of cargo and what it was like to launch a balloon with a large amount of cargo.

World View is a company that hopes to use larger balloons for Earth monitoring and eventually send tourists to the top of the world. The pair decided to form their own high-altitude balloon company with the goal of mimicking the trajectory of the satellite industry. CubeSats, small standardized satellites about the size of a shoebox, have been used by companies to develop entire constellations for Earth monitoring. They wanted to do the same thing with urban sky.

They ran into technical problems. He says they thought it would be easy. We thought we could make everything smaller. It didn't work at first. To maintain a stable position in the sky, stratospheric balloons rely on ducting systems. A lot of the company's early balloons descended premature, and Shrinking that system turned out to be incredibly hard. The shape of the balloon was changed to make sure it was stable. A lot of work was done to miniaturize the equipment so that it could fit into a small container.

The final microballoon product can carry no more than six pounds. According to Urban Sky, the balloons can sit anywhere between 17 and 21 km high. Customers need to give at least 24 hours' notice to plan for a dedicated mission, which is dependent on good weather. Four to seven hours is the average time for one mission. When the mission is done, the balloons can be retrieved and used again, but not for stratospheric balloons.

Urban Sky wants to launch its system more and more as they move forward. Antonio wants to try out higher refresh rates.

There are some limitations on where these balloons can be deployed. Urban Sky doesn't plan to launch over international conflict The company says the balloons are capable of launching from land or over water. Currently, they operate in Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nebraska, with plans to expand throughout the United States. Pricing for its imagery starts at $6 per square kilometer, but Urban Sky isn't revealing what it costs to operate its system.

Their goal is to be five to 10 times cheaper than the average cost. As a lower-cost option, Urban Sky doesn't plan on acting as a replacement for satellite imagery.

Antonio says, "We sit between these really expensive, but really high-resolution manned aircraftimaging systems and these really broad area coverage, but lower resolution and bandwidth- limited satellite systems that are really expensive."