Hyderabad, December 8: The test-flight of a space exploration capsule of a Spain-based space tourism firm was successfully conducted in collaboration with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) balloon facility here.

The facility provided balloon-launching service for testing the space exploration capsule of ‘Halo Space', scientists at the TIFR said on Thursday. They said it was an unmanned test-flight with only the capsule and some accessories.  DRDO Conducts Successful Test Flight of Very Short-Range Air Defence Missile off Odisha Coast (Watch Video).

A huge balloon (over 2.8 lakh cubic meters in volume) launched by the TIFR balloon facility carried the circular capsule on Wednesday with 800 kg payload, including the 620 kg capsule, along with other accessories.

It reached a floating altitude of 36.9 km (in the sky) and floated for 20 minutes at the same altitude, they said.

“This trial was successful. They wanted to test all environmental parameters. The launch was smooth and they got very good data and they could verify it with their capsule,” said the balloon facility committee chairperson Devendra K Ojha to PTI. The last part of the experiment which is recovery of the payload (after being detached from the balloon) was also successful, he said. India Successfully Conducts Maiden Flight Test of Phase-II Ballistic Missile Defence From Odisha (Watch Video).

The capsule was retrieved from Vikarabad district around 100 km from here.

Halo Space approached the TIFR facility (for the test-flight). As part of the collaboration, TIFR fabricated the balloon for 'Halo Space' and launched its capsule, he said. They are happy with this performance and have requested to supply one more balloon to send the capsule from other countries, he said.

Devendra said the TIFR balloon facility regularly gets requests from companies abroad and also Indian startup firms for conducting trials, but the facility has mandate for scientific experiments, and they take requests from private agencies for experiments depending on the slots.

“Ours is a unique facility wherein we make 'zero pressure balloons'. The uniqueness of our facility is that we fabricate very large balloons and we launch and recover them (after the voyage).That's why it becomes unique and there is high demand of our services,” Devendra said.

As per the website of HALO Space, the firm is developing a new kind of space tourism that takes people on a zero-emission, 6-hour journey to the edge of space. “In our space balloon, you'll fly up to 40 km above the ground and admire the curvature of the Earth and the vastness of space in a way that only astronauts and sci-fi movie actors have done before. No special training or space suits required, it said.

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