"Since the race’s inception, nine pilots had perished from mountainside crashes, unexpected plummets, or rogue lightning storms."
An excerpt from the new Atavist Magazine story, "The Balloon That Fell From the Sky," by Nick Davidson: https://longreads.com/2025/04/03/balloon-race-belarus-disaster/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
It's #FollowFriday !
Meet StratoCat, an Argentina-based independent source of historical data and news on the development of stratospheric balloons for scientific research, aerospace & military applications, and commercial exploitation of near space. Online since 2005.
The website also publishes the newsletter "World Balloon News"
Artist: #DavidZinn in City: #AnnArbor MI USA 
01/2025 - Title:
"Benny's tree-climbing days are
behind (and soon to be beneath)
him." 
"Bennys Baum-Kletter-Tage liegen
hinter ihm (und bald unter ihm)."
#StreetArt #Art #Chalkart #Artist #SidewalkChalk #Squirrel #Ballooning #GoodMorning 
Hot air balloons in the early morning stillness ponder so slowly through the world! This video is from 2009 when a number of experimental balloonists held a convention in Amherst MA. My daughter and I filmed this very early in the morning from the Coolidge bridge looking south over the Connecticut River.
Some of the balloons: Hopper, Chariot, and Airship Rally
Yesterday, Aerostar launched a Thunderhead balloon from its balloon launch facility near Hurley, South Dakota.
The craft is moving eastbound across the midwest states.
Real time tracking: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a2680b
It's #FollowFriday !
Meet StratoCat, an Argentina-based independent source of historical data and news on the development of stratospheric balloons for scientific research, aerospace & military applications, and commercial exploitation of near space. Online since 2005.
The website also publishes the newsletter "World Balloon News"
World Balloon News (previously known as Weekly Balloon News) is a somewhat regular bulletin containing balloon-related news of what's going on in the field of scientific, aerospace and military ballooning and commercial exploitation of near space.
Subscribe today for free to receive a notification when a new issue is published. Never miss an update.
After some training performed at the Aire Sur L'Adour centre CNES is ready to test in flight for the first time the BALMAN steerable balloon.
The test will ake place at the Centre Spatial Guyanaise in French Guiana between Oct. 30 and Nov. 15.
https://centrespatialguyanais.cnes.fr/fr/campagne-balman-au-csg
Sceye Inc. launched a new mission for its Stratospheric Airship this morning from its hangar in the Roswell Industrial Air Center in New Mexico.
The airship is currently over Texas airspace.
Real-time tracking: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=a6838f
Aerostar established a new record with one of their Thunderhead balloons being aloft for 200 days and counting.
Mission HBAL676 launched on March 28 from the firm's winter Lodge in Santa Fe County, is still floating 60 kft above the Pacific Ocean.
The previous record was 156 days aloft.
Yesterday, October 9th, Aerostar performed another launch of a Thunderhead balloon.
On a first for the company, the balloon was launched from the Beecroft Weapons Range in New South Wales, Australia.
The site is administered by the Australian Defence Force for use as a live-firing range.
Real-time tracking: https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N256TH
Aerostar launched today from TCOM's Manufacturing & Flight Test Facility located in Elizabeth City (NC) a #Thunderhead balloon.
The craft with callsign #HBAL710 is floating now over the Atlantic Ocean at 60.000 ft.
This is the first time that the Sioux Falls-based firm launches from there.
Real-time tracking: https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?icao=aceb11
The Stratollite balloon launched by World View on September 15th from Page (AZ) landed today in Southern Kansas after more than 20 days aloft.
Pictures by Wes Pettygrew
Hot air balloon in the Pioneer Valley
#photography, #366photodgraphy2024, #potd2024, #photoaday, #everydayphotographer, #photooftheday, #pad2024-273, #hotairballoon, #mistyriverballooning, #ballooning, #westernmass
First time I saw the balloons over the falls. Amazing experience!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca_4nBnUvfg
Now underway at NASA balloon base in Ft Sumner launch operations for the last flight of the fall campaign.
Mission 748N will transport DR-TES (Dilution Refrigerator Transition Edge Sensor) an experiment aimed to observe X-rays or gamma-rays with unprecedented energy resolutions.
Live stream available at https://video.ibm.com/channel/nasa-educational
