Google is planning to send helium balloons around the world and deliver Internet to users in remote areas. The project is named ‘Project Loon’ and was started in June 2013 by the top secret Google Division X and now is going for beta phase. Google will be conducting Project Loon trials in Australia, New Zealand and Latin America.  Mike Cassidy from Google says that Google will be using its own manufacturing facility and automated systems to deliver a balloon in hours instead of days. He stated that the company is ready to launch thousands of balloons in the skies. Each balloon is nearly 50 feet in diameter and electronic equipments hang underneath each carrier, which include radio antennae, a flight computer, an altitude control system and solar panels.

Google has already tied up with leading service provides like Telstra in Australia, Telefonica in Latin America and Vodafone in New Zealand for end point connectivity. Cassidy stated that their testing of Project Loon revealed that the helium balloons can stay afloat for six months. Google can keep a real time track of the balloons and retrieve them once they have outlived their life or run out of helium.  Cassidy said that Google has developed allied software systems and hardware for the same. He further said about the new automated crane system for reliable delivery of the balloons in the sky and that Google can now launch dozens of balloons every day.

Google has said that the helium powered balloons can be used in disaster regions like earthquake or tsunami affected areas, where on-ground communication has been destroyed, can provide much necessary real time information about the situation on ground. 

By Premji