News

Raven Industries (NASDAQ:RAVN) has acquired intellectual property (IP) and patents from Loon, LLC (formerly known as Project Loon), a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and the developer of an autonomous constellation of high-altitude balloons for communications. In January, Alphabet announced the wind down of Loon. The 176 assets acquired by Raven are directly related to stratospheric balloon technology, including balloon navigation, launching operations and balloon manufacturing.

The NASA TechRise Student Challenge, which will start accepting entries in August, will invite teams of sixth to 12th-grade students to submit ideas for climate or remote-sensing experiments to fly on a high-altitude balloon, as well as space exploration experiments to fly aboard a suborbital rocket. Raven Aerostar will help students bring their ideas of technology-driven experiments to the edge of space or beyond via a high-altitude balloon.

Through different programs, customers approach Raven to fly their equipment for many different reasons. This equipment, carried by the balloon, is called the “payload.” Raven Aerostar has a payload integrations team that works directly with customers to integrate their payloads onto the balloon for mission success. Click here to read how these payload integrations are made.