Second Flight of the SZ-155 and Flight Test Update

Stratoship recently achieved the second ever test flight of our prototype high altitude airship, at a remote location in Central Queensland. We had a clean launch shortly after 11pm on the night of the 1st of December 2024.

The Stratoship SZ-155 during helium fill.

The test flight ended prematurely at 13,000 feet after one of our duplicated backup safety systems – an automatic flight termination system – spuriously fired. The airship came back down and landed gently in a grassy field. A subsequent investigation revealed that the issue was caused by a misconfiguration in one geofence controller.

The Stratoship SZ-155 before launch.

Founder Daniel Field stated “We now fully understand this specific issue. This automatic flight termination meant we were not able to achieve our primary aim, which was to demonstrate propulsion and control at an altitude above 60,000 feet. While disappointing, we take heart from the fact that this test flight was still a big step forward.”

“Nearly every aspect of setup, launch, and operation ran smoother and more under control compared to the first launch. We’ve come a long way, but we still have further to go.”

We are now implementing a fix to the configuration issue, as well as dozens of small improvements and tweaks that were identified by the team in our in-depth debriefs. Our next test flight is planned for April 2025.