World View Shows Off Global HQ/Operations Hub in Arizona

By Evelina Croitoru

Tucson, Ariz.—Stratospheric balloon and flight exploration company World View has announced the opening of its new global headquarters campus at Spaceport Tucson, a county-owned building located in Tucson. The campus is the world’s first purpose-built commercial gateway to the stratosphere.

The 142,000-square-foot facility features a stratospheric balloon manufacturing table stretching over 1/10 of a mile long, a 100-foot tall parafoil test and quality control tower that is currently housing one of the world’s largest parafoils, and a world-class mission control room overlooking Spaceport Tucson’s 700-foot in diameter launch pad. The newly completed facility will house the company’s stratospheric balloon manufacturing, stratocraft assembly, Stratollite and Voyager development activities, payload integration, and flight mission control.

“World View and Spaceport Tucson are at the forefront of opening an entirely new economy in the stratosphere. For decades, trillions of dollars of commerce have been transacted in commercial airspace and in low-earth orbit, but the stratosphere has been largely ignored. With the grand opening of this facility and all the great work being done within its walls, we’re embarking on a new era of affordable and meaningful commercial access to this layer of Earth’s atmosphere,” World View’s founder & CEO, Jane Poynter, said in a prepared statement.

As reported by Tucson.com, the Board of Supervisors of Spaceport Tucson agreed back in January 2016 to spend $15 million to build facilities that would be needed by World View, in exchange for 20 years of lease payments.

Images courtesy of World View