So last week the Brewster County Sheriff's office posted some pictures of what they called a crashed weather balloon that they assisted in the recovery of north of Marathon. When I saw the pictures, I knew right away it was not just a weather balloon. Took me all of 5 minutes of Googling to figure out what it was...a
Worldview Stratollite (similar to the Google Loon project). I reached out to the company and their Media Relations Dept. responded the next day. The craft that performed a controlled landing (not a crash) was a Stratollite test mission designated Gryphon 13. Launched from Arizona in November, it was a record flight for the company - maintaining navigational control in the stratosphere for 45 days...surpassing an October flight of 32 days. Funny thing is, although it tipped over upon landing, Worldview posted a photo of it on their Facebook page with the craft standing upright. Their current mission is Gryphon 16 which launched December 16th. You can track that flight
here. 58,73,56,0,B