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France has launched a strategy to operate at Very High

Altitude

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Near-space becoming priority after Chinese balloon

incident

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Thales Alenia Space developing Stratobus airship

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Startup Hemeria to stage second test flight of Balman

balloon

By Tim Hepher

PARIS, Sept 30 (Reuters) - French companies are

fine-tuning plans for stratospheric spy balloons and airships as

competition heats up in the no man's land between the atmosphere

and outer space, tipped as the next potential zone of tensions

between world powers.

Stratobus, owned by Thales Alenia Space, and

Hemeria, a small firm created in 2019 to prevent sensitive

technology leaving France during a wider merger, are the latest

companies to focus on a belt known as Very High Altitude.

The growing importance of near-space captured global

attention in 2023 when the United States shot down a suspected

Chinese spy balloon. Beijing insisted it served scientific

purposes and strayed into U.S. airspace accidentally.

"It's a space that's not occupied. We have to be there and

if we aren't, others will be," Stratobus head Yannick Combet

said.

FRENCH COMPANIES TESTING HIGH-ALTITUDE VESSELS

The Stratobus airship is designed to re-establish

communications after a disaster or sit with observation cameras

above an area of sudden interest, like a hostage-taking.

"Notre-Dame (cathedral) would fit inside the balloon," which

is 142 metres long, Combet told the AJPAE media association.

Thales is building test models and aims to be ready for use by

2031.

Hemeria's smaller Balman balloon is designed to get into

position quickly and can manoeuvre by changing altitude to

exploit wind currents.

A second test flight is planned in coming weeks, with

limited operations starting in 2027.

"We want to be reactive and capable of launching in a few

hours... Today the minimum preparation time for such a balloon

is two months," said project manager Alexandre Hulin.

In June, France unveiled a new strategy calling for the

ability to operate at Very High Altitudes between 20 km and 100

km (12.4 and 62 miles) and intercept opponents.

Weeks later, Paris said fighters had downed two balloons

flying more than 20 km above the ground as a demonstration.

REGULATORY GREY ZONE

Officials say such vehicles can intervene over great

distances and then stay over the same spot for months,

complementing constantly-moving satellites.

However, they operate in a legal grey zone left over from

the earliest days of air power and only now getting attention.

After World War One introduced aerial bombing, Paris peace

negotiators granted every nation sovereignty over its airspace,

abandoning efforts to make the skies as open as the high seas.

The right of each country to control its airspace was

confirmed towards the end of World War Two.

Space evolved on opposite lines. A 1967 treaty declared

outer space "free for exploration and use" but negotiators

failed to establish an outer limit for the tapering atmosphere.

Now, the fuzzy boundary between Earth and space is emerging

as a new front of competition.

"The more technology improves, the more we will fly higher

and faster... and the more satellites will orbit lower,"

Brigadier-General Alexis Rougier, France's top official for Very

High Altitudes, said last week.

"So a zone that was little used in the past will be used

more and more," he told the National Assembly defence committee.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)