Voyager Subsidiary, Pioneer Astronautics, Announces Successful Demonstration of First of its Kind Balloon Flight System
Voyager Space Holdings, Inc. (Voyager), a global leader in space exploration, today announced a major milestone for its subsidiary, Pioneer Astronautics: the successful launch of its new balloon flight technology, the Gas Replacement System (GRS). This month, GRS technology powered the launch of a high-altitude balloon, which travelled to 107,000 feet.
Today, most scientific balloons are powered by costly helium, with fuel leakage limiting flight duration. Pioneer’s GRS provides a solution to this problem, catalytically dissociating ammonia into a 25 percent nitrogen and 75 percent hydrogen gas mixture, which provides lighter-than-air float gas for balloons. The GRS can generate float gas for large scientific balloons in flight at altitudes above 100,000 feet, doubling or tripling the duration and scientific return of flights by replacing leakage. It can also be used to launch balloons from remote locations without the need to transport heavy helium compressed air cylinders.
“This technology could be of extraordinary value for high altitude science. Ammonia stores as a liquid at 40 psi pressure at 10 times the density of compressed helium at 4000 psi. So a balloon carrying ammonia to make float gas can carry hundreds of times as much replacement gas in tanks of a given weight as it could using helium. This means flights will be able to stay up much longer, getting a lot more science done for the same money,” said Dr. Robert Zubrin, President, Pioneer Astronautics. “Earth is not the only planet where we could use this – I can’t wait to try out GRS units on Mars, Venus, and Titan too. Congratulations to principal investigator Mark Berggren, Larsson Johnson, Vincent Workman, and the rest of the GRS team for their brilliant success. Let’s fly!”
In the test, the GRS was used to launch a high altitude balloon from the ground. Ascending from Lakewood, Colorado, the craft caught the polar vortex at 95,000 feet and accelerated to a velocity to 128 mph, after which it continued its ascent to burst at 107,000 feet. The gondola then descended by parachute, and was recovered on a ranch in Kit Carson County, Colorado, near the Kansas border.
The GRS was developed by Pioneer Astronautics with SBIR Phase 1 program support from NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center.
“Pioneer is dedicated to inventing and proving new technologies to advance humanity’s reach into space, and the GRS is an innovative example of achieving this goal,” said Matthew Kuta, president and COO of Voyager. “This momentous launch marks the achievement of a major milestone for the company, and I’m eager to see how GRS technology extends the life of science flight missions, on Earth and beyond.”
Technical information and photos taken during the test flight can be found at http://www.pioneerastro.com/gas-replacement-system-grs-successful-flight/
For more information on Voyager please visit: https://voyagerspaceholdings.com/
About Voyager Space Holdings, Inc.
Voyager Space Holdings, Inc. is a global leader in space exploration. Voyager’s long-term mission is to create a vertically integrated publicly traded NewSpace company capable of delivering any mission humans can conceive. By centralizing shared services functions at the parent company level, Voyager enables engineer founded and led subsidiaries to focus more on development of innovative products and services. The firm’s first in industry model is uniquely tailored to support the growth needs of commercial space companies by offering an alternative solution to traditional private capital models and replaces them with a longer-term approach as a provider of permanent capital. Voyager is led by founders and space industry veterans Dylan Taylor and Matthew Kuta, with a Board of Directors that includes National Security Expert and four-star Air Force General William Shelton, leading investor Gabe Finke, world leading planetary Scientist, Dr. Alan Stern, noted public company director and former undersecretary of technology Dr. Cheryl Shaversand experienced technology executive, board director, and financial leader, Marian Joh. To learn more about Voyager Space Holdings, Inc., please visit: http://voyagerspaceholdings.com/
About Pioneer Astronautics
Founded in 1996 by Dr. Robert Zubrin, Pioneer Astronautics is an aerospace research and development company focused on creating new technologies to help open the space frontier. Over the course of its 24 year history, the company has executed over 70 highly-successful R&D programs for NASA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and private corporations. While its programs have covered a wide range of applications ranging from rocket propulsion to life support systems to high altitude balloon technology, Pioneer’s central focus has been in the area that NASA calls “In Situ Resource Utilization” (ISRU) but which Zubrin prefers to call “Local Resource Creation.” “There are no such things as natural resources,” says Zubrin. “There are only natural raw materials. It is technology that turns materials into resources. The Moon and Mars have no resources now. But they will have plenty once there are resourceful people there – with the right tools for the job. That’s where we come in.”
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SOURCE Voyager Space Holdings, Inc.
