A Near Space Labs weather balloon which takes high resolution images landed on Burr Oak Ranch in Atchison County Monday, September 26. Aiden Erickson and Kyler Hughes with Erickson Farms found the balloon while harvesting. (Erickson Farms photo)

A Near Space Labs surveillance balloon landed in a cornfield on Burr Oak Ranch, two miles south of Tarkio, Missouri, on Monday, September 26, 2022. The balloon was found by Aiden Erickson and Kyler Hughes, who were combining a cornfield for Erickson Farms. According to their website, “Near Space Labs actively provides timely, scalable, 10cm imagery with the largest fleet of zero-emission, stratospheric balloon robots in the world.” The balloon had a camera attached that had taken over 3,000 pictures while it traveled over Atchison County. Once found, Erickson Farms called a phone number found on the craft and was notified a team would be sent to pick it up.

The balloon robot is called the Swifty. “The Swifty is an autonomous, zero-emission, high-altitude robot that makes frequent flights into the stratosphere flying between 60,000 and 85,000 feet in the air – via a sophisticated weather balloon. Swiftys capture a whopping 400-1,000 sq. km of imagery per flight, roughly the size of all of New York City’s five boroughs, at 10 cm per pixel resolution. Our nimble technology is built with our customers in mind – and provides high-resolution, high-frequency imagery with customizable capture abilities. In other words, high-quality geospatial data without trade-offs. The Swifty is a one-of-a-kind, eco-friendly solution broadening access to high-quality geospatial Earth imagery.” Some of those customers who contract to use the weather balloon are government entities, insurance agencies, conservation departments, energy and utility companies, disaster response teams, and more.