Kuang-Chi set to launch ground-breaking balloon flight into ‘near space’
Company says if the trip – using a 2.5m diameter cabin, carrying a live turtle – is successful, human passengers could be flying to such heights within three years
Kuang-Chi Group, the Shenzhen-based technology company, will launch a huge balloon at the weekend lifting a 2.5-metre-diameter cabin carrying a live turtle, to test the future possibility of bringing humans to “near-space” heights, or about twice that of commercial airlines.
If all goes to plan, the company hopes to commercialise the service within two years, with trial plans already well-advanced for human passengers by 2019.
The company tested its “Traveler I”, a similar design, in the skies above New Zealand last year. But Sunday is the first time a craft of this type has carried a live animal to such heights.
Near space is the region of earth’s atmosphere that lies between 20 and 100 kilometers (65,000 and 328,000 feet) above sea level, above the height at which civil aircraft can fly, but below that of satellites.
It should take around half an hour to reach its maximum altitude, where it will stay for up to two hours, depending on the air conditions.