Google’s internet balloons fly ten times longer than last year

Google claims that the balloons from its Loon project can stay in the air ten times longer than last year. This is due to improved manufacturing. Project Loon aims to provide remote areas with Internet access via high-flying balloons.

Project Loon’s balloons now stay in the air for about 100 days, compared to 10 days last year, says the division working on the project on Google+. The record now stands at 130 days, more than four months.

The fact that the balloons stay in the air longer is due to improved manufacturing. Also, the people who make the balloons put on fluffy socks when they walk over them to ensure as little resistance as possible and thus reduce the chance of leaks in the balloons.

With Loon, Google wants to try to bring internet to remote areas by sending a 4G signal at a high frequency through the various balloons to equipment on the ground. To connect to the rest of the internet, the signal passes through various balloons to a base station with regular internet on the ground. The balloons maintain their positions because they float on the steady winds at 20 kilometers altitude; if they have to fly elsewhere, they adjust their height to sail on winds from a different direction.

Google unveiled its project almost a year and a half ago. It is now doing a test with the provider Telstra in Australia to try out the internet connections in practice.