JP Aerospace

JP Aerospace is a volunteer-based organization dedicated to achieving affordable access to space. They have been hired by the U.S. Air Force to provide concepts to allow rapid launch of battlefield communication and monitoring systems.

JP Aerospace was founded by John Marchel Powell, familiarly known as "JP", and Michael Stucky and Scott Mayo. (ref original JPA meeting minutes 1977) Since its inception, JP Aerospace has had a special interest in lighter-than-air flight. Their stated purpose is achieving cheap access to space. JP Aerospace has uniquely chosen inflatable, buoyant components as a primary means of propulsion as opposed to standard rocket propulsion.

The group entered as a contestant in the Space Frontier Foundation Cheap Access to Space (CATS) Prize in the late 1990s. An unsuccessful suborbital space launch attempt using a rockoon (balloon-launched high power rocket) was covered by CNN at the Black Rock Desert in northwestern Nevada in May 1999. The CATS Prize expired without being awarded in November 2000.

Since then, JP Aerospace has worked with a number of clients interested in launching cameras into the upper atmosphere via balloons, including The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and Toshiba (for their 2009 television commercial Space Chair). Their Tandem vehicle set the airship altitude record of 95,085 feet on October 22, 2011.