High Altitude Ballooning at IIA

Filled balloons waiting for launch

We launch stratospheric balloons from the CREST campus of the Indian Insitute of Astrophysics for scientific purposes. Typically we use multiple balloons to reach altitudes of over 30 km.

The ballooning group is led by Prof. Jayant Murthy and Dr. Margarita Safonova and currently includes graduate students A. Sreejith, Joice Mathew, Mayuresh Sarpotdar, Nirmal K. and Ambily S.





We are using our balloon program to develop and test payloads for space missions taking advantage of the many opportunities now becoming available.

My TEDx talk at BNMIT:




Space Payloads

It is our thesis that if we build payloads, we will get opportunities to fly them. We are working on two opportunities at the moment: