How much did Project Loon cost?

Australia and India were selected to be case study locations when discussing the feasibility of Project Loon. The material makeup of each balloon was assessed and an energy audit found each balloon had 70225MJ of embodied energy and an estimated initial cost of $17870.

Why did Google shut down Loon?

Citing the inability to drive costs low enough to create a “long-term, sustainable business,” Loon CEO Alastair Westgarth announced the end of the project in a blog post late last week.

How is Project Loon going?

The firm said on Thursday evening that it was winding down Loon, a nine-year-old project and a two-and-a-half-year-old spin-off firm, after failing to find a sustainable business model and partners for one of its most prominent moonshot projects.

Is Loon still in business?

— Google’s parent company Alphabet is shutting down Loon, a high-profile subsidiary spun out from its research labs that used high-altitude helium balloons to deliver cellular connectivity from the stratosphere. So we’ve made the difficult decision to close down Loon,” Astro Teller, who heads X, wrote in a blog post.

How does Google Loon work in Kenya?

A network of giant internet-enabled balloons from Google’s sister firm Loon is to provide internet access to remote areas of Kenya. It will provide 4G coverage so people can make voice and video calls, browse the web, email, text and stream videos. Loon began as one of Google’s so-called ”moonshot projects” in 2011.

How big is a Loon balloon?

The balloons are superpressure balloons filled with helium, standing 15 m (49 ft) across and 12 m (39 ft) tall when fully inflated. They carry a custom air pump system dubbed the “Croce” that pumps in or releases air to ballast the balloon and control its altitude.

Why did Google balloon fail?

But ultimately, Loon didn’t take off because Alphabet failed to recognize that socioeconomic problems — including illiteracy, the cost of data and handsets, and discrimination — would play a bigger role in keeping people off the internet than a lack of cell towers.

How do Google’s Project Loon balloons work?

The balloons communicate with each other and with ground-based networking equipment and mobile devices to get people on the ground connected. Project Loon came out of Google X labs, the outfit known for other crazy-sounding projects like self-driving cars, Google Glass and contact lenses with computing components.

Is Google’s Project Loon sustainable?

Since 2013, Google Project Loon has improved the sustainability of their mission by: All of these innovations have led to more balloons being launched quicker, easier and staying airborne for longer periods of time. Most notably, Project Loon proved key during several recent natural disasters.

What is Project Loon and how does it work?

Most notably, Project Loon proved key during several recent natural disasters. According to CNN, when Peru experienced devastating flooding and mudslides in the spring of 2017, Project Loon was able to keep families and emergency services connected since they had already “been testing in Peru with telecom company Telefonica for months.”

How fast will Project Loon’s balloon network be?

They expect coverage to be on par with typical LTE 4G network speeds. Project Loon’s leader, Mike Cassidy, has stated that their balloon networks could cover as much as 5,000 square kilometers (1,931 square miles) on the ground, and provide service at 15 megabits per second on a phone, or 40 megabits per second on a MiFi device [source: Verge ].