A white balloon-like machine resembling a giant jellyfish, wafting over metro Denver and northeastern Colorado on Friday morning, turned a few heads.
It was carrying NASA instruments that measure solar radiation in the stratosphere, data that can help keep aerospace crews safe.
The company World View Enterprises on Saturday in Arizona launched the remotely run craft that can travel between 45,000 and 75,000 feet elevation, relying on solar arrays hanging off the bottom of the balloon and tilting toward the sun for power.
The operators will fly this machine — called a Gryphon Stratolite — north of the 40th parallel to gather data for NASA as part of that agency’s program for measuring solar radiation levels, World Enterprises spokesman Phil Wocken said, confirming a flight path over metro Denver.
In the mountains west of Denver near Black Hawk, Myron Zeleznik, 80, a retired sheet metal worker and general aviation pilot, watched for hours from his house at 9,200 feet elevation. “It’s white. It looks like a balloon on top of a balloon,” Zeleznik said.
“It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said, admitting he was worried.
“I’ve launched in hot air balloons, so I know what they look like. This doesn’t look like a hot air balloon, because it doesn’t have a basket.”
He called 911 when he saw it Friday morning.
The NASA instruments use sensors to measure solar radiation — data that can be used to improve aerospace safety by estimating radiation doses and dose rates along flight tracks, Wocken said. Government agencies are trying to set up a reliable system to “monitor the natural galactic and solar radiation environment” where commercial flights carry passengers and flight crews.
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