Revolutionary NOAA high-altitude research tool passes key milestone

The HORUS glider and balloon prepared for a test flight on May 17, 2023, in Colorado’s Pawnee National Grasslands. Credit: NOAA

The quest by Global Monitoring Laboratory scientists to develop a reliable, cost-effective way to study Earth’s stratosphere passed a significant milestone on May 17 when a remotely controlled glider, carried to an elevation of 90,000 feet by a weather balloon, returned to its launch location on Colorado’s Pawnee National Grasslands with its scientific payload intact. 

The successful mission marked the next step in a four-year effort to deploy and recover an atmospheric sampling and measurement system from that altitude in controlled airspace. 

“To collect any highly accurate measurements from a balloon-borne platform in controlled airspace and have it return to where you launched is a first for the non-military research community,” said Colm Sweeney, the lab’s Associate Director of Science.