Keep Your Eye on the HBAL—Tracking Project Loon Balloons

These balloons belong to Google’s Project Loon, designed to bring Internet access to remote regions not served by traditional infrastructure. The helium balloons contain equipment that connects the balloons to each other, ground relay stations, and the Internet. They are also equipped with an ADS-B receiver, which makes them visible on Flightradar24. The balloons float in the stratosphere gaining and losing altitude to find the right wind patterns to carry them where the need to be. They float above weather systems and commercial air traffic, generally between 55,000 and 70,000 feet.



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