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Airbus U.S. Space & Defense and Aerostar announced a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between the two companies which led to successful joint Internal Research and Development (IRAD) stratospheric test flight. The test flight enabled testing of hardened communications systems suitable to support ISR sensor applications from the stratosphere. The combination of these systems enables near real-time communication and ensures operationally relevant information for critical decision-making.

Aerostar announces a historic achievement: 500 consecutive days of operations in the stratosphere. With high altitude balloons aloft somewhere in the world every single day from December 12, 2022 to April 25, 2024, Aerostar demonstrated persistent operations in the stratosphere and covered more than 265,936 nautical miles. With more than 2 million total flight hours in the stratosphere, successful missions over all seven continents, and single balloon flights exceeding 150 days duration, Aerostar has proven global reach and capabilities to operate in diverse environments.

Raven Industries (NASDAQ:RAVN) has acquired intellectual property (IP) and patents from Loon, LLC (formerly known as Project Loon), a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. and the developer of an autonomous constellation of high-altitude balloons for communications. In January, Alphabet announced the wind down of Loon. The 176 assets acquired by Raven are directly related to stratospheric balloon technology, including balloon navigation, launching operations and balloon manufacturing.