Candido detailed their design changes and hard work since Google launched Project Loon with an experimental pilot in New Zealand, where a small group tested the technology in New Zealand in 2013.
He even made fun of the 2013 Loon balloon, saying, ”Since the beginning of Loon, we’ve questioned the assumptions about how stratospheric balloons should be built, trying alternative materials, varying the recipe by which that material is seamed together, and exploring different designs.”
“We’ve tried a lot of things, and some of them have looked quite strange. In fact, some of one early homebrew balloon prototype was mistaken for a UFO, including one memorable sighting in Eastern Kentucky.”
After more than seven years of designing, system engineering, modeling and simulation, experimentation, and analysis, Candido said they achieved so much.
Loon is beginning to understand that the stratosphere represents a multi-billion dollar market
“So what are those efforts and how have we come so far? Like almost every hard problem, the high-level answers are the same: 7+ years (and counting) of determination to keep improving, working both smart and hard, and a combination of a few key innovations,” wrote Candido.
