Stratospheric

High-altitude platform stations (HAPS) are effective tools for communication and surveillance because they operate from the stratosphere, much closer to earth than satellites. But how do they stay on track?

When it comes to taking high-res aerial photographs, we generally look to satellites, drones or full-size aircraft. Colorado-based Urban Sky's new Microballoon system, however, is claimed to deliver higher-resolution images at a much lower cost.

After a decade of development Aurora Flight Sciences has finally unveiled Odysseus, its full-scale, solar-powered, autonomous aircraft designed to stay in the air for months. Odysseus is scheduled for its first test flight in 2019.

A new study has revealed that ozone levels in the heavily populated lower latitudes don't seem to be recovering as well as regions near the poles. Although there isn't yet a clear explanation as to why this is happening, blame may still rest on short-lived ozone-destroying chemicals.

World View had originally planned to start sending humans into the stratosphere in balloons in the year 2016. It has fallen a little short of that goal, but all is not lost as 2017 will become the year the private company did send a KFC chicken sandwich to the edge of space. ​

Finding microbes on Mars would be the discovery of the century, and to make sure that any organisms dug up on the Red Planet are natives and not stowaways, NASA has launched bacteria into Earth’s stratosphere aboard a balloon, to test how well they might survive under Mars-like conditions.

Felix Baumgartner has successfully carried out a 96,640 foot parachute jump from the Red Bull Stratos balloon, landing safely after reaching Mach 0.8 during the descent.

US scientists propose that artificially introducing aerosols to the atmosphere will brighten clouds and increase reflectivity which could help defend the Earth from global warming.

Amateur radio enthusiasts help a Japanese enthusiast record high definition video in near space

MIT students have launched probably the cheapest off-the-shelf photographic mission ever, capturing photos of the earth from space for next to nothing