India’s near-space startup Red Balloon Aerospace on Wednesday launched the country’s first indigenous super-pressure balloon carrying commercial payloads from seven national and international partners.The Vijayawada-based space-tech company’s Mission SANA places India among five nations globally with indigenous stratospheric (hydrogen) balloon capability, alongside the United States, France, Japan, and China.The company was founded in May 2025 by two former executives of Skyroot Aerospace.The company's VISTA platform - a super-pressure platform, ascended to approximately 25 kilometres above Earth from Indira Gandhi Stadium in Vijayawada.The launch included payload partnerships with organisations testing biological experiment systems, propulsion technology demonstrations, onboard computing platforms, earth observation sensors, and navigation performance validation systems.All payload missions were completed successfully, validating India’s technical capability against international commercial standards. Mission SANA also created a persistent platform for telecommunications, disaster monitoring, earth observation, and surveillance applications that traditional satellites and aircraft cannot cost-effectively and persistently provide.At that altitude, the VISTA platform also functions as a tower in the sky, enabling Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN) connectivity and disaster management across regions that have historically lacked persistent, affordable coverage."Over the coming months, we will expand VISTA capabilities through multiple missions, accelerate HELIX airship development, and deepen commercial partnerships across telecommunications and disaster management. Our advantage is execution speed, enabling us to design, test, and deploy indigenous stratospheric platforms at a pace that demonstrates India's capability to compete globally in emerging space sectors,” said Dr. C. V. S. Kiran, Co-founder and CEO of Red Balloon Aerospace.“A single VISTA mission can support multiple customers, multiple experiments, and multiple industries at the same time,” added Sireesh Pallikonda, Co-founder and COO of Red Balloon Aerospace. (ICE NEW DELHI)

Fonte notizia: Economic Times