Post by nictoe on Feb 17, 2023 9:11:24 GMT -8
Last Saturday, high above Canada’s Yukon territory, the pilot of a $150 million U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor, acting on orders from the leaders of both Canada and the U.S., fired a $472,000 AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at a small unidentified cylindrical object flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet, resulting in a confirmed air-to-air “kill.” What NORAD still hasn’t been able to confirm, almost a week later, is what exactly was blown out of the sky on February 11.
Since then, members of the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, a club of high-altitude-balloon hobbyists, have been waiting to hear from K9YO-15, the group’s silver mylar “pico” balloon.
Pico balloons are small tracker-equipped circumnavigational balloons that typically cost less than $200 to build. K9YO-15, which had been airborne nearly 124 days and was in the middle of its seventh circumnavigation of the globe, sent its last signal on February 10, just southwest of Alaska, as Aviation Week reports:
Since then, members of the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade, a club of high-altitude-balloon hobbyists, have been waiting to hear from K9YO-15, the group’s silver mylar “pico” balloon.
Pico balloons are small tracker-equipped circumnavigational balloons that typically cost less than $200 to build. K9YO-15, which had been airborne nearly 124 days and was in the middle of its seventh circumnavigation of the globe, sent its last signal on February 10, just southwest of Alaska, as Aviation Week reports:
