GOOGLE BALLOONS : PROJECT LOON

• Google is launching balloons into near space to provide internet access to buildings below on the ground.
• Attached equipment will offer 3G-like speeds to 50 testers in the country.
• Google calls the effort Project Loon and acknowledges it is "highly experimental" at this stage
• The firm says the concept could offer a way to connect the two-thirds of the world's population which does not have affordable net connections.

A few weeks ago Google revealed jellyfish-shaped internet-beaming antenna balloons, designed with the goal of eventually allowing more remote areas of the earth internet access.

About 30 of the super pressure balloons are being launched from New Zealand from where they will drift around the world on a controlled path.

Attached equipment will offer 3G-like speeds to 50 testers in the country.

Access will be intermittent, but in time the firm hopes to build a big enough fleet to offer reliable links to people living in remote areas.

It says that balloons could one day be diverted to disaster-hit areas to aid rescue efforts in situations where ground communication equipment has been damaged.

But one expert warns that trying to simultaneously navigate thousands of the high-altitude balloons around the globe's wind patterns will prove a difficult task to get right.

Google calls the effort Project Loon and acknowledges it is "highly experimental" at this stage.

The project has been in the works for 18 months and was announced in New Zealand. 50 volunteer households are being used as test subjects for the platform. The balloons are in the earth’s stratosphere, 19 kilometers above the earth.

The project is being developed by Google’s secret Google X lab and is currently dubbed “Project Loon.” This is the same division that created the recent driverless car and Google’s crazy internet browsing eye glasses.

The project is still in very early stages but its ultimate goal is to narrow the divide between the 2.2 billion people that have internet access and the 4.8 billion that don’t. If the technology pans out, it could remove the need of installing expensive fiber-optic cable in areas like Africa and Southeast Asia.

Military and aeronautical researchers have been experimenting with tethered balloons to beam internet signals back to earth for some time now. What makes Google’s balloons different is the fact that they’ll be untethered and out of site. They’ll move around the world, powered by natural winds.

What are superpressure balloons?

Superpressure balloons are made out of tightly sealed plastic capable of containing highly pressurised lighter-than-air gases.

The aim is to keep the volume of the balloon relatively stable even if there are changes in temperature.

This allows them to stay aloft longer and be better at maintaining a specific altitude than balloons which stretch and contract.

In particular it avoids the problem of balloons descending at night when their gases cool.

The concept was first developed for the US Air Force in the 1950s using a stretched polyester film called Mylar.

The effort resulted in the Ghost (global horizontal sounding technique) programme which launched superpressure balloons from Christchurch, New Zealand to gather wind and temperature data over remote regions of the planet.

Over the following decade 88 balloons were launched, the longest staying aloft for 744 days.

More recently, Nasa has experimented with the technology and suggested superpressure balloons could one day be deployed into Mars's atmosphere.

Each balloon is 15m (49.2ft) in diameter - the length of a small plane - and filled with lifting gases. Electronic equipment hangs underneath including radio antennas, a flight computer, an altitude control system and solar panels to power the gear.

Google aims to fly the balloons in the stratosphere, 20km (12 miles) or more above the ground, which is about double the altitude used by commercial aircraft and above controlled airspace.

Google says each should stay aloft for about 100 days and provide connectivity to an area stretching 40km in diameter below as they travel in a west-to-east direction.

The firm says the concept could offer a way to connect the two-thirds of the world's population which does not have affordable net connections.