Who We Are…
Started in 1996, Near Space Corporation (formerly known as GSSL, Inc.) was formed to fill a growing void in the balloon community. Scientific ballooning was in a declining mode. The relatively mature market was slowly shrinking as established programs were downsized or phased out completely. In response to economic pressure, the industry became increasingly specialized and virtually eliminated competition. New users were discouraged by the significant amount of investment and experience required to establish new programs. Concurrently, breakthroughs in the electronics, computer and communications industries opened the door for exciting new near space systems and applications.
NSC’s mission is to leverage these new advances in technology and provide the necessary infrastructure for complete design, fabrication, and operational support for new balloon applications as well as payload return vechicles. With our Tillamook balloon facility we can meet all the flight operation needs from payload integration through launch, flight, and recovery.
Our primary markets include science, education and government. Customers include NASA, NOAA, DOD, NCAR and several universities. Since 1998, Near Space Corporation has supplied NASA with more than 35 high altitude deployments (>100k ft) of prototype Mars balloons, airplanes, gliders, and parachutes designed to serve as payload return vehicles.
In our first year of operation, we became the largest supplier of super-pressure balloons. Our WindStar technology promises to open a whole new realm of applications for extremely long duration flights. Current designs are capable of providing small payloads with flight durations in excess of one year.
Our professional staff has well over 100 years of experience in the analysis, design, manufacturing and flying of virtually all kinds of high-tech flight vehicles and instruments. They have designed and fabricated the full range of high altitude zero-pressure and super-pressure balloons, tethered and free flying aerostats and high-tech space inflatables. We also have extensive experience in aerospace instrument and flight hardware design. Additionally, NSC routinely uses web-based balloon trajectory forecasting tools in our flight operations and we have helped develop other similar applications with our partners at NOAA and NCAR.
NSC is uniquely positioned to offer various near space solutions. We are well-known, well-respected, well-established experts in the near space field. Our unique high altitude return vehicle permits the use of highly capable, sensitive payloads that can be reused multiple times. Near Space Corporation’s strong reputation and the proven capability of our near space recovery system make us the right choice for reliable and affordable access to and from near space.
