Skyhook Balloon - Project Skyhook

Project Skyhook

In the late 1940s, Project Skyhook balloons provided a stable vehicle for long duration observations at altitudes in excess of 100,000 feet. Balloons, long used for collecting meteorological data, now offered the opportunity of collecting highly specialized information and photographs. The first Skyhook balloon was launched on September 25, 1947. The balloon was developed by General Mills. It carried a 63-pound payload of nuclear emulsion to over 100,000 feet. In the succeeding 10 years, over 1500 Skyhook flights were made for investigations supported by the ONR and for European scientists. These flights were made from locations in the United States, Canada, and naval vessels in the Atlantic, Pacific, Caribbean, and Arctic waters. Both Winzen Research and General Mills participated in these launchings, and in later years, the Atomic Energy Commission joined ONR in support of Project Skyhook.

Among significant flights, in 1948 Project Skyhook launched the first successful three balloon cluster. In 1949, the first shipboard Skyhook launch took place, followed by nearly 300 shipboard launchings over the next 10 years. The first manned plastic balloon flight under ONR contract took place in 1949. Project Rockoon, in 1952, featured a Skyhook balloon that released small Deacon rockets at about 70,000 feet above arctic waters. On September 7, 1956, the University of Minnesota launched a giant Mylar balloon (developed by the G. T. Schejeldahl Corporation of Northfield, MN) to set an unofficial balloon altitude record of 145,000 feet for unmanned balloons. In 1957 the US Navy began an operational aerology system known as Transosonde (trans-ocean sounding), consisting of almost daily balloon flights across the Pacific Ocean from Japan.