Each year, more than 800,000 weather balloons are launched, and the radiosondes that launch with them are lost. As R2Home founder Yohan Hadji explains in this video from Meteorological Technology World Expo 2024, the company has developed an innovative glider solution to address the costly and environmentally damaging issue of weather balloons.
The solution puts the radiosonde in the nose of a glider that travels up into the atmosphere with the balloon, then detaches and autonomously returns to the launch site using GPS for a controlled descent. The company has so far been able to reuse the gliders 20 times; the goal is to reach 50 reuses.
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