Stratolink sends a real scientific payload into the upper atmosphere — tracked live through a global gateway network, visible on a dashboard with your name on it. Here's how it all works.
If you've seen a meteorologist release a big white balloon, you have the wrong mental model. Pico balloons are different. They don't burst. They don't fall back down. They fly.
A pico balloon is sealed with just enough hydrogen to balance its weight at altitude. It rises until the air outside is thin enough to match its density — and then it floats, riding the jet stream. Some missions cross oceans. Some circle the Northern Hemisphere. The data keeps coming as long as the payload stays powered.
No pressurized tanks. No truck rentals. No regulators. The whole setup fits on a folding table.
A weather balloon stretches as it climbs. The air outside thins out; the gas inside pushes the latex outward until it pops. That's by design — it's a one-shot vertical probe.
A pico balloon is made of mylar. It doesn't stretch. Instead, it rises until the air outside matches its own density — and then it stops climbing. Sealed, taut, totally content. This is called superpressure equilibrium.
At 12 km the atmosphere is about 80% thinner than at sea level. Your balloon weighs the same. With the right amount of gas, it finds the altitude where those two numbers balance — and that's where it flies, day after day. The wind takes it from there.
No ham radio license. No portable receiver. From 12 km up, your balloon has line-of-sight to LoRaWAN gateways hundreds of kilometers away. It pings the closest one. The gateway forwards over the internet. The cloud updates your dashboard.
A mission operations screen in your browser, updating live, all flight long. Position. Altitude. Temperature. Signal. Your friends and family watch from their couches.
The dashboard is yours from release until the balloon goes silent. Share the link. Embed it in a class. Watch the temperature drop as your balloon enters the stratosphere. Watch the longitude wind around the planet.
Here's the telemetry from Test Flight 003 — a six-hour stratospheric float, every reading captured live, every anomaly logged. The platform has flown. The data is real.
Average ascent rate: 0.73 m/s · within nominal envelope · matched pre-flight prediction within 4%.
So we switched to barometric pressure fallback. The balloon kept going. SO DID THE DATA.
Pick a launch day. Pick a name for your mission. We handle everything else.