Tucson stratospheric balloon startup World View is on a path to recovery | Subscriber

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Balloon Manufacturing Manager Nena Quirao is working on the plastic that World View uses to make a balloon.

Rebecca Sasnett Photos, Arizona Daily Star

Tucson-based stratospheric balloon startup World View Enterprises took most of its employees on leave last year as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted companies around the world.

Now on the recovery path, the company is resuming flights and increasing its hiring largely thanks to a new lease with Pima County for its south-facing headquarters.

Founded in 2013, World View has developed an unmanned balloon vehicle called the Stratollite that can fly payloads such as scientific sensors and communication devices to stratospheric heights of up to 75,000 feet and navigate them through long-term missions.

The company had flown more than 50 test and commercial flights for clients like NASA and was increasing its flight pace when COVID-19 hit and operations ceased.

As the pandemic spread in the spring of 2020, World View kept some of its production workers busy making medical isolation gowns that are made available to healthcare workers at cost, recalled CEO Ryan Hartman.

“We didn’t fly, but we were able to use our pliable plastics expertise to help fight COVID,” he said, noting that efforts have helped the company keep its manufacturing team intact.

CEO Ryan Hartman took over the helm of World View in February 2019 after six years at Raytheon in Tucson.

Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Daily Star

The company flies again, making its giant plastic balloons at its headquarters south of Tucson International Airport, where workers assemble balloon skins on 600-foot tables.

After many employees were called back, World View’s workforce has climbed back to around 60, and the company expects it to be back to around 100 by the end of the year, Hartman said.

Press reset

A new lease, approved by Pima County’s board of directors in early July, has helped the company recover from the disruption caused by the pandemic.

“We’ve worked with the county to bring more people back, but most importantly, it was an opportunity for us to redouble our commitment to Tucson and Pima County and make sure our long-term journey keeps us in Tucson and our facility,” said Hartman, who took over the helm of World View in February 2019 after six years at Raytheon, Tucson.

The original 2016 lease saw World View pay nearly $ 25 million over a 20-year period for the headquarters and 12-acre property with a launch pad, with rent increases every five years and an option to purchase the property on End of lease including the county’s $ 15 million building for a token payment of $ 10. The company also received a $ 4 million tax break.

This deal was challenged in court by a taxpayer represented by the conservative Goldwater Institute who alleged it was an illegal gift of taxpayers money, but the county won on trial and on two appeals, with only one issue pending in the Arizona Court of Appeals was.

Under the new contract, lease payments will be incrementally increased but kept relatively low for the next year to help World View recruit employees, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry told supervisors.

World View will end up paying approximately $ 23.4 million instead of $ 24.9 million, but the end-of-purchase option price will now be $ 5 million and the company has a right of first refusal to a $ 6 Acre property with adjoining property abandoned property of the district

The new deal also eases hiring requirements in the initial rental while increasing the average minimum salary. It requires World View to grow to 125 full-time employees in 2022 and incrementally increase each year until the original end goal of 400 is met.

With the increased minimum average salaries, the resulting total wages will exceed the level required in the original lease from 2024, Huckelberry told the superiors.

The amended lease was approved by 3-2 votes, with supervisors Matt Heinz and Steve Christy voting against the deal.

Christy said during the meeting that he was against preferential treatment of the worldview. He said the refinancing was a sign of financial difficulty and that he would prefer to turn the facility or its lease over to a private company for financing.

Michael Wray, test engineer manager, and Tom Dusz, integration mechanic, prepare to transport a Stratocraft into the house in the World View, 1805 E. Aerospace Pkwy.

Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Daily Star

The final question in the Goldwater lawsuit – whether the agreement violates the “gift clause” of the Arizona Constitution, which prohibits the donation of public funds to private companies – is pending in the Arizona Court of Appeals.

The revised rental structure is intended to ensure that the district’s return is “just as high” as in the original lease and thus falls under the donation clause decision of the district court, said Huckelberry in his memo to the superiors.

But in an opening letter tabled on August 24 in the gift clause case, Goldwater alleged that the mortgage lending, “below-market” lease payments, launch pad construction, and tax breaks are all illegal “gifts” under the Constitution , and that lease amendments approved in July “do not remove the illegality of the county ‘s conduct”.

Extended offer

As the legal challenge drags on, World View is busy getting back into the stratosphere.

Hartman said the company resumed flight operations with missions in June and July, with a mission originally scheduled for August pending and roughly monthly missions planned through the end of the year.

World View can’t talk about many of its customers under confidentiality agreements, but publicized customers include NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Ball Aerospace, and the U.S. government.

World View is also making advances on both the technology and marketing fronts.

In addition to offering customers the ability to fly their own hardware on a Stratollite, the company is now offering a service called World View Perspectives, an online portal that allows customers to inquire about image data collected on a given day or a database of missions World View has flown over areas of high interest such as the Permian Basin in western Texas.

World View can keep its Stratollites in the air for days or weeks by using an air ballast system to change altitude so that the wind can steer the boats in the direction they want – or allow them to move at a fraction of over An interesting area to hold up the cost of a space satellite in geostationary orbit.

The company is also launching World View Orbits, a fleet of its Stratollite balloon vehicles over North and Central America – an initiative announced in March 2020 but delayed by the pandemic – to provide customers with high resolution imagery and related analytics products for a variety of uses to offer.

The idea, Hartman says, is to fly regular missions over areas of interest to customers to give them a predictable, consistent flow of images that suits their needs.

Christian Sewart, chief operations manager, works on a ground station used for communication with a balloon ship at World View.

Rebecca Sasnett, Arizona Daily Star

The high-resolution imaging system that World View uses can achieve a resolution of 5 to 7 centimeters, compared to the highest resolution of satellite imagery of 30 centimeters, Hartman said.

The company also offers mid-band and shortwave infrared thermal imaging and can fly radar and communications payloads.

In July, Hartman said, the company tested a new super-pressure ballast balloon that helps control stratollites that is easier to make while offering higher weight capacity.

World View is also working with a partner to give customers more analytics on their data.

Last fall, the company announced a strategic partnership with North Carolina’s Geo Owl to provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) data.

World View provides the flights and raw images, while Geo Owl provides analytics to measure the data based on security or other compliance requirements, for example, said Hartman, CEO of Boeing’s own drone and ISR company, Insitu before he left came to World View.

“Pictures are just data … we take pictures and turn them into something that customers can do,” he said.

Contact Senior Reporter David Wichner at dwichner@tucson.com or 573-4181. On Twitter: @dwichner. On Facebook: Facebook.com/DailyStarBiz

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