The company’s VISTA platform, the super-pressure platform, ascended to about 25 kilometres above the Earth from Indira Gandhi Stadium in Vijayawada.
Red Balloon Aerospace has launched Mission SANA, the country’s first private high-altitude super-pressure balloon carrying commercial payloads from seven national and international partners.The company’s VISTA platform, the super-pressure platform, ascended to about 25 kilometres above the Earth from Indira Gandhi Stadium in Vijayawada. Founded last year in Vijayawada, the near-space startup could build the platform and launch its first mission in just eight months.The startup is developing stratospheric platforms, tethered aerostats, and stratospheric airship systems for near-space applications.
Sireesh Pallikonda, Co-Founder and COO of Red Balloon Aerospace.
Red Balloon Aerospace’s technology addresses a critical gap in spatial infrastructure. While aircraft operate below 10 km and satellites orbit above 160 km, the stratosphere between 20 and 50 km has remained largely unused despite offering strategic advantages.Stratospheric platforms provide high-resolution imaging with longer dwell times than satellites, flexible deployment without orbital launch costs, and rapid response capability for disaster management and communications.The mission places India among five nations globally with indigenous stratospheric (hydrogen) balloon capability after the United States, France, Japan, and China.“A single VISTA mission can support multiple customers, multiple experiments, and multiple industries at the same time,” added Sireesh Pallikonda, Co-founder and COO of Red Balloon Aerospace. Unlike conventional near-space platforms that rise and descend within a few hours, VISTA remains operational for weeks or even months, creating a persistent near-space platform at a fraction of the cost of satellite deployment.
