Stories from the stratosphere

GEEK WIRE - World View Enterprises today executed its first balloon liftoff from Spaceport Tucson, the Arizona facility that it expects will be the home base for satellite-like “Stratollite” missions to the stratosphere — and, eventually, tourist flights as well.

FORBES - Arizona-based World View, a startup aimed at stratospheric exploration, has announced that it's partnering with KFC to send a Zinger chicken sandwich nearly 75,000 feet up into the stratosphere - high enough to see the curvature of the Earth. This will be the first multi-day mission of the company's Stratollite system.

PRESS RELEASE - World View, the stratospheric exploration company, today announced the grand opening of its new Global Headquarters campus, collocated with Spaceport Tucson. The 142,000-square-foot facility is the world’s first purpose-built commercial gateway to the Stratosphere.

PRESS RELEASE - World View has successfully completed a high-altitude balloon mission for the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), a flight funded by the NASA Flight Opportunities Program (FOP) office. For this mission, SwRI flight tested a miniature solar observatory on a five-hour high-altitude balloon flight. The SwRI Solar Instrument Pointing Platform (SSIPP) is a complete, high-precision solar observatory approximately the size of a mini fridge that weighs about 160 pounds. The observatory provides the optical precision equivalent to imaging a dime from a mile away.

PRESS RELEASE - World View, the pioneers at the edge of space, today announced the introduction of a new category of above-earth vehicles with technological capabilities previously unavailable to government and commercial customers. In the months to follow, World View will be accelerating the development and commercial adoption of its “Stratollites”– or high-tech balloons that operate in the stratosphere.

TECH CRUNCH - World View, the advanced high altitude balloon company, has raised a $15 million Series B led by Canaan Partners. The round also included investments from Norwest Venture Partners, Moment Ventures and Base Ventures. The company had previously raised $7.1 million.

PRESS RELEASE - Arizona is poised to become a hub for the space tech industry, as World View – the commercial balloon spaceflight company – today announced that Tucson will become home to its global headquarters, conducting launches from Spaceport Tucson. The announcement follows today’s affirmative vote on a public-private partnership with World View and Pima County, working in collaboration with the City of Tucson, Sun Corridor, Inc. and the State of Arizona.

SPACE.COM - Balloon-based space tourism is one big step closer to becoming a reality. Arizona-based World View Enterprises, which aims to loft paying customers to the stratosphere beneath a giant balloon, launched an uncrewed test flight Saturday (Oct. 26). The company sent a 10-percent-scale version of its passenger capsule to an altitude of 100,475 feet (30,624 meters) above the town of Page in northern Arizona. You can see an amazing video of the flight here.

POPULAR SCIENCE - Some say the sky is the limit, but for World View, an Arizona-based balloon flight company, sending commercial passengers more than 100,000 feet above Earth is the ultimate goal. The company came one step closer to achieving that on Saturday, with a scaled-down but fully functional test launch from an airfield in Page, Arizona, which now readies it for full-scale test flights.

POPULAR SCIENCE - It’s a dream of many to visit the great wide vacuum that is outer space—but getting there can be pretty intense. You know, like the part where you have to strap yourself into a 60-ton rocket accelerating upward at 18,000 miles per hour. Well instead of hurtling violently into the stratosphere, what if you could gently levitate there instead? That’s the idea behind World View, a private company that wants to send tourists to the brink of space using a giant balloon.

SPACE.COM - World View Enterprises wants to send space tourists into the stratosphere — not with the jolt of a rocket, but, gently, with a balloon. The fledgling Arizona-based company released a spectacular video of a sunrise from the stratosphere captured from a recent unmanned commercial payload flight, offering a glimpse at the vistas future customers might experience during a sunrise voyage.

PRESS RELEASE - Following the record-breaking 135,908-foot space dive accomplished by Google's Alan Eustace and the Paragon StratEx team, World View Enterprises, the commercial balloon spaceflight company, has acquired the technology from this history-making project. The acquisition will advance the company's mission to pioneer a new frontier at the edge of space for travel and research.