High Altitude

The world’s fastest enduro has climbed higher than any motorcycle ever has… unassisted, as part of a Guinness World Record attempt. The record altitude was achieved by a Stark Varg EX, atop Los Ojos del Salado: the world's highest active volcano.

Looking to validate electric powertrain technology, the Peak Evolution Team climbed the world's highest active volcano into the record books this month. The team climbed to an EV altitude record over 6,000 m while relying entirely on solar charging.

Mercedes-Benz's squat little Unimog trucks have proven their expeditionary prowess yet again with the announcement that a U 5023 truck has set a new altitude record for wheeled vehicles, reaching 6,694 m (21,962 ft) above sea level.

Autonomous aerial vehicles known as High Altitude Pseudo Satellites (HAPS) can soar at the edges of space for long periods of time. Now, UAVOS has conducted test flights of its ApusDuo prototype, an autonomous, solar-powered aircraft with flexible wings that bend and bounce to keep it aloft.

Raymond's Solar Flight has detailed its fourth solar-powered aircraft, the Sunstar. Designed primarily for unmanned flight, it's reported to have more performance potential than any other projects currently under development, with greater flight speeds in a turbulence-tolerant design.

Alan Eustace, has broken the 128,100-ft (39,045-m) high-altitude skydive record set by Felix Baumgartner in October, 2012. Jumping from a balloon at 135,890 ft (41,419 m) above Roswell, New Mexico, Eustace also set new world records for vertical speed and freefall distance.

The solar-powered UAV previously known as the Qinetiq Zephyr, which is now part of the Airbus High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) programme and called the Airbus Zephyr, has continued it's record-breaking ways in its first civil flight in the skies over Dubai earlier this month.

Riding on the colossal stratospheric air waves generated over mountains, the Perlan ll team plans to fly their glider to the edge of space and shatter all existing wing-borne sustained flight height records.

Satellites may be very useful for communications, navigation and other applications, but they're expensive to build and launch. That's why Thales Alenia Space is developing the StratoBus, an airship that can be launched like a regular blimp, but that will be able to hover in the stratosphere.

World View Enterprises is making a foray into the fledgling space (or near-space) tourism sector that will see passengers take a balloon ride to an altitude of 30 km (18.6 mi) from where they will be treated to a spectacular view of the Earth.

NASA has developed a world-first test facility to study turbofan icing at high altitudes.

Two Global Hawk unmanned aircraft have flown in close formation at distances as close as 30 feet (9 m) for the first time as part of a DARPA program to give autonomous aircraft aerial refueling capabilities.