MISSOULA — MTN News received several reports on Monday of something floating over the skies of Montana. It turned out to be two high-altitude balloons on research flights from Aerostar, a South Dakota-based aerospace and defense company.
“When they see the balloon, it just looks like a little white dot in the sky, right?” said Russ Van Der Werff, Aerostar vice president of stratospheric solutions. “But that balloon is actually on the order of 70 to 100 feet across. It's not a weather balloon, it's something pretty big and sophisticated.”
Learn more about the balloons over Montana:
Two of the company’s Thunderhead Balloon Systems floated through the big sky on Monday, as part of longer research and development flights.
“It’s one thing to have a balloon that is just floating up in the stratosphere. We're talking 23 times higher than aircraft are flying, but it's another thing once you can navigate it and make it last for a very long time,” Van Der Werff said. “That's carrying say 100 to 200 pounds of sensors or communication gear up to say 70,000 feet or thereabouts and then navigating using the winds.”
Aerostar works with private groups and government agencies. The balloons are used for everything from providing cell communication in remote spots or after a disaster to observing situations on the ground.
“In 2017, there were a number of our balloons up over Puerto Rico after the hurricane hit there, reestablishing cellular communication for first responders or even victims of the emergency after the ground infrastructure had been wiped out,” Van Der Werff recalled.
Van Der Werff says they’re on a research and development flight to improve that technology.
“Think of anything you would do with an aircraft or a satellite. A balloon can do those kinds of things, but it's less expensive and can fly for, say, longer than an aircraft, though it doesn't last as long as a satellite. So it's sort of a middle ground between those technologies.”
The balloons are used for everything from providing cell communication in remote spots or after a disaster to observing situations on the ground.
“We did a flight last year with NASA and the US Forest Service to monitor for wildfire starts in the Pacific Northwest," Van Der Werff told MTN.
Aerostar does work with the military, but these flights over Montana were just for the company, as they work to improve their balloons.
“They may not look that big from the ground, but there's a lot of technology. There's pretty cool stuff there," Van Der Werff said.
