Google Balloons Off The Coast

[Grahame Hutchison]

We picked up three Google Project Loon balloons around 240nm east of Sydney this morning
(HBAL259, HBAL260 and HBAL265), indicated by the short straight lines on the right of the image.
These are the new generation ADS-B ballons, transmitting position data and are currently at 65,000ft.



They have dropped back to MODE S only at times.



Updated position on HBAL260 - the purple lines are all of today's flights, so you can see the full path of the balloons. We will now need to
add a balloon icon to our ASD-B setup. You can go to http://adsb.16right.com/ Live Radar to track the balloons, and they have appeared
on FlightRadar24 when operating full ADS-B.



1058L Update

[Grahame Hutchison]

This is how the Google Project Loon Balloons have been tracking over the past 24hrs, their transponders
pinging about every 0.75 sec and now east of Port Macquarie.



From the 16Right ADS-B Analytics page, you can see the significant increase in transmissions from midnight to 5am today (purple line),
compared to the average.

[Grahame Hutchison]

HBAL259 is now at 50,000 feet and very close to the coast at Forster. It would be interesting to know if they are visible from the ground ?

[AdamC]

What's the purpose of these Grahame, or anyone if they know.

Visible on flightradar24 also. There was heaps over New Zealand last week.

Cheers

Adam

[Grahame Hutchison]

From Google Project Loon ...

Many of us think of the Internet as a global community. But two-thirds of the world’s population does not yet have Internet access. Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters.

Project Loon balloons float in the stratosphere, twice as high as airplanes and the weather. In the stratosphere, there are many layers of wind, and each layer of wind varies in direction and speed. Loon balloons go where they’re needed by rising or descending into a layer of wind blowing in the desired direction of travel. People can connect to the balloon network using a special Internet antenna attached to their building. The signal bounces from this antenna up to the balloon network, and then down to the global Internet on Earth.

[Grahame Hutchison]

The is the latest position of the balloons with Range Rings and our current ADS-B reception Polar Plot. At 60,000 feet they are well above normal weather, only
needing small changes in altitute to pickup different air currents and change direction.



The 16Right ADS-B Analytics for today show the amazing difference in reception from the balloons transmitting all day, rather then
aircraft transmitting only for the duration of their flight (purple line compared to green).

[Grahame Hutchison]

Update From this morning ...

[Grahame Hutchison]

This story has been picked up by ZDNet's AU Edition by Leon Spencer.

Sydney sees Project Loon drift

[Radi K]

They were west of Brisbane a few months ago, and over Victoria too last month.

[Grahame Hutchison]

They are up near Noumea at the moment.