New York Startup Releases Climate Balloons

A New York-based startup founded in 2017, called Near Space Labs, which has already proven to be a leader in stratospheric remote sensing, has released a fleet of high-altitude balloons in a historic mission aiming to deploy and capture high-resolution images of disaster-prone areas across the United States. The balloons are equipped with advanced AI-powered robotic cameras called ‘Swifts’. These cameras should have a resolution of seven centimetres per pixel, from their 60,000 to 85,000-foot vantage point (over twice as high as a plane flies), each robot will be able to capture 1000 square kilometres of imagery per flight and also create zero emissions. 

A Swift balloon

As the U.S. home insurance industry faces financial turmoil and losses of over $101 billion, mainly due to increasingly frequent and severe weather events, Near Space Labs will be providing insurance companies, urban planners and government agencies with access to detailed and frequently updated imagery at a much lower cost than previous methods. 

This should help accurately assess where the most extensive damage is after hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires so that both residents and insurance companies have the right data to make predictions. This comes after many major providers are beginning to retreat from high-risk states like Florida, California, and Texas, which are putting homeowners and businesses at risk and threatening local economies. CEO of Near Space Labs, Rema Mateovsyan said, ‘Many insurance companies are still relying on aerial data collection methods from the 1950s to assess 2024’s climate risks…When you consider that only six per cent of the $250 billion in losses from Hurricane Helene may be covered by insurance, it becomes clear that outdated risk assessment methods are creating a domino effect: poor data leads to inadequate policy pricing, which leads to carrier losses, which ultimately forces insurers to abandon entire markets—leaving homeowners stranded and unable to secure mortgages."