On Friday 16 May and Saturday 17 May, one was spotted cruising over South-West Queensland as shown below.
Project Loon is a research and development project being developed by Google with the mission of providing Internet access to rural and remote areas. The project uses a network of high-altitude balloons placed in the stratosphere at an altitude of about 20miles (32km) to create an aerial wireless network with up to 3G-like speeds.
Because of the project's seemingly outlandish mission goals, Google dubbed it "Project Loon".
Damien,
ReplyDeleteglad you posted this as I had thought my ADS-B receiver was playing up given the altitude readout!! There has not been any media coverage that I could find of this current balloon activity in SEQ. Currently I'm receiving a signal from the balloon at 67,800ft!! It is not transmitting an ADS-B position but is squawking code 1300.
Picked it up just north of Mackay Qld. at 15:13 utc 02/08/2014
ReplyDeleteHelium Balloon
Registration(700120)
GOOGLE
Altitude 1,664 ft
Vertical Speed 0 fpm
Speed 13 kt
Track 188°
Latitude -20.8045
Longitude 149.1186
Radar T-YEML1
Squawk 1300.
Thought that my system was having a senior moment before further investigation revealed the situation.
Laurie Daniels. Ravenswood.