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Comment by shawn | Hacker News Reader

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shawn

Anyone know how Project Loon is doing? It's been awhile since I've heard anything.

https://x.company/loon/

It seemed similar.

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Google balloons still show up on ASD-B (aircraft transponder tracking) from time to time, but beyond that I dunno.

Yup, I saw one floating over Georgia recently. It floated over from the Caribbean.

It looks like they're actively hiring to commercialize Loon, which seems like a good sign:

https://careers.google.com/jobs#!t=jo&jid=/x/head-of-supply-...

> Preferred qualifications:

> Have taken a telecommunications product or aerospace product from concept to mass production

They appear on https://www.flightradar24.com/ once in a while. 3 in Northern Nevada right now.

Not very well. They had a short span during the hurricane disasters where they got publicity, but they face a lot of the same problems: spectrum, movement, and small coverage areas.

my initial reaction to this news was "oh good, now Google can cancel Loon without feeling like they lost to Facebook"

If Musk launches his satellite data mesh, would loon still have a place?

That's hard to tell at this point.

From a pure physics standpoint, loon should be able to outperform satellites in urban areas and in receiver cost. I'm sceptical if that is enough to justify the project, but we don't know how Musk's satellites will perform yet

Arguably no, but lets see if Musks plans are more than PR speak to build up hype. Right now, Google is way ahead.

With current designs, Musks satellies need special ground stations to communicate with. They can't beam internet direct to your phone.

Loon can connect direct to your phone.

Both will require a fairly decent set of base stations so the balloon/satellite itself can connect to the internet.

They made a major advance in the last couple of years by integrating real-time wind data to the flight planning. The baloons can 'loiter' much better now by changing altitude to drift back and forth over an area of interest.

Here is some info from my observations of the Google Loon activity out of Winnemucca, Nevada...

https://desertfog.org/projects/project-loon/launch-activity/

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