Commercial Unmanned Flights

For Suborbital Research and Education

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With an active high-altitude commercial flight program and years of experience, World View is the trusted and reliable option for research and education flight customers that are ready to fly today. Here’s why:

We can carry your payload to 46 km or 150,000 feet for hours or days.
In 2014, we flew 27 balloon flights, including three manned flights.
We are an official NASA Flight Opportunities Program provider, having successfully flown multiple experiments for the space agency.
We have flown payloads weighing up to 300 kg and we have flights manifested this year up to 4,000 kg. Download our brochure for more information. If you don’t see what you need, let us know. We can customize your flight.
Experience is everything. With the StratEx project, World View’s team broke the world altitude record for a manned space dive, meaning your unmanned payload is safe with our world-class flight operations team.
Our customers always come first. Our goal is to help you succeed. We’ll work within your requirements, adjust to your needs, and provide you the best overall flight experience possible.

If you’re interested in flying with us or would like to learn more about whether we can accommodate your needs, please call 520-745-4445 or email [email protected].

Learn more about the advantages of high-altitude balloon flight and World View’s past experience on the pages to follow.

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Research & Education Missions

Exploration is the sport of the scientist.

– Balloonist Auguste Piccard May 27, 1931

Download a message from World View Chief Scientist Alan Stern.

World View presents significant research and education opportunities by providing highly affordable access to the near space environment.

On board the capsule in a shirtsleeves environment, researchers and educators can conduct human-tended and non-tended activities at 1/600th the cost of a ride to the International Space Station, and 30x less expensively than on a Black Brant sounding rocket.

Research and commercialization applications include Earth and atmospheric sciences, IR, UV, and charged particle astronomy, solar physics, ionospheric studies, communications, life sciences, astrobiology, technology demonstrations, surveillance, and media to name a few. World View also provides excellent educational opportunities including flying student experiments on board.

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World View’s high-altitude platform provides a variety of advantages for research and education, including:

Key Advantage	Research Rationale	Improvement Over
Human Tended	Instruments not automated, less expensive.Researchers dynamically perform and adapt experiments to data in flight.	Orbital, Some Suborbital
Lower Cost	Launch cost less: 600x less than a Soyuz flight, 30x less expensive than a Black Brant sounding rocket.Gentler ride means instrumentation and equipment are less expensive, and crew training requirements are lower.	Orbital, Rocket Suborbital
Longer Duration	Hours vs. few minutes: More observations and experiment runs Able to observe more changes in phenomena Sufficient time to teach classes, make educational and media videos	Rocket Suborbital
Altitude	Higher ground resolution, longer lower-level exposure, good access to the entire stratosphere.	Orbital, Rocket Suborbital
Lower G’s & Vibration	Gentler ride for instruments.	Orbital, Rocket Suborbital
Increased Range	Ability to transect the atmosphere and cover more ground.	Rocket Suborbital
Lower Speed	Better for many kinds of atmospheric and meteoritic sampling.	Orbital, Rocket Suborbital
No Zero-G	Simpler design and operations, “ground-like” laboratory environment.	Orbital, Rocket Suborbital

Exploration is the sport of the scientist.

– Balloonist Auguste Piccard May 27, 1931

Your Partner For Success

There are multiple opportunities for researchers to propose balloon-borne flight for instrument, system, and sub-system testing under the NASA Space Technology Research, Development, Demonstration, and Infusion-2015 (SpaceTech REDDI-2015) program. Below is a list of those opportunities, available through the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) SpaceTech REDDI Program.

World View is here to help you identify and win those opportunities. As a fully integrated partner focused on your success, World View can help you both develop your proposal and provide the balloon flight services for the actual flight.

These opportunities aren’t unique to balloon-borne flight, but each of them can use balloon-borne flight as the platform to raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of a spacecraft system.

Program	Award Cap (K$)	Appendix to SpaceTech REDDI Solicitation (NNH15ZOA001)	FY2015 Target Announcement of Opportunity Release
Program	Award Cap (K$)	Appendix to SpaceTech REDDI Solicitation (NNH15ZOA001)	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC)	100 for 1st year	A1-NIAC Phase I
NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC)	100 for 2nd year	A2 – NIAC Phase II			March
Space Technology Research Grants (STRO-ECF, STRO-ESI)	200/year max for 3 years	B1 – Early Career Faculty (ECF)
Space Technology Research Grants (STRO-ECF, STRO-ESI)	275/year max with 500 max for 2 years	B2 – Early Stage Innovations (ESI)
Game Changing Development (GCD)	Variable1	C1- GCD Technology Topics
	Variable1	C2 – GCD Technology Topics
	Variable1	C3 – CCD Technology Topics
Technology Demonstration Missions (TDM)	1000 max	D1 – Technology Demonstration Mission Topics
Small Spacecraft Technology (SST)	100/year for max 2 years	E1 – SST Partnerships
Small Spacecraft Technology (SST)	Variable- check NSPIRES2	E2 – SST Development and Demonstration
Flight Opportunities Program (FOP)	250	F1 – FOP Technology Topics
Notes: Funding levels for Game Changing Development varies depending on the specific technology chosen for any given solicitation. Check NSPIRES for specifics. Funding available to Small Spacecraft Technology E2 varies with the specific spacecraft to be flown.

Please check the NASA Solicitations and Proposal integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES) for updates to the solicitations listed here.

For more information on the SpaceTech program, click here.

Sign up Join our mailing list to stay up to date on new opportunities and relevant news, and feel free to reach out to us at any time for assistance.

You can contact us directly with questions:

Alan Stern	[email protected]
Bill Gibson	[email protected]

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World View has completed the following missions:

Launch Date	Payload	Location
03/08/2015	World View launches its first flight under the NASA Flight Opportunities Program, carrying a cosmic ray sensor for students from Gannon University and a sensor designed to measure the distribution of gases in the atmospheres of Earth and other planets for the University of Central Florida. Read the full story here.	Marana, Arizona
02/19/2015	Montana State tested a computer system designed to achieve increased reliability in extreme environments alongside a low-cost tracking and high-definition video link. North Florida flew experimental technology to measure the ozone gas profile in the stratosphere using a nanocrystaline gas sensor array.	Marana, Arizona
10/24/2014	Third record-breaking manned flight to 135,000 feet.	Roswell, New Mexico
10/15/2014	Second record-breaking manned flight to 107,000 feet.	Roswell, New Mexico
10/04/2014	First record-breaking manned flight to 55,000 feet.	Roswell, New Mexico
10/15/2014	World View launched an experimental flight designed to capture media footage for Tencent Holdings with flight integration and technology testing performed by Moon Express.	Roswell, New Mexico
10/14/2014	World View & Tencent Holdings capture stunning high-definition footage of a sunrise from the edge of space, viewable here.	Roswell, New Mexico
06/18/2014	Offical World View test flight with an unmanned 10% scale flight system, breaking the parafoil flight world record while mirroring the full manned flight profile from launch to recovery.	Roswell, New Mexico