Mastodawn

Here's a mystery... a flock of ADS-B equipped balloons, currently assuming uncrewed, flying over Portland at 40,000+ ft / 12000+ m. Their callsigns start with NSL, which sounds like Near-Space Labs, which is a stratospheric imagery startup. But not certain with several other possible uses of the TLA, which could be #weather balloons. https://globe.airplanes.live/?icao=000212&filtercallsign=NSL #aviation #avgeek #balloon

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Ian Kluft ✅✈️🎈🌋5d ago

I got a picture of one of the mystery balloons. These are standard latex balloons like NWS uses every day for weather balloons. This one was transmitting on ADS-B with the callsign NSL0367. It was at 41,000ft' altitude over Vancouver, Washington at a distance of 10 nautical miles (11mi, 18km) northwest of me. At that altitude the balloon could be about 20ft / 6m diameter. #aviation #avgeek #balloon

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Ian Kluft ✅✈️🎈🌋

All four of the mystery "NSL" balloons have landed. Remarkably, three of them landed in the exact same place. So they must have some directional control on the descent. #aviation #avgeek #balloon