{
    "archive_path": "archive/1792145092.254222",
    "base_url": "www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere",
    "basename": "",
    "bookmarked_date": "2026-10-16 10:04",
    "canonical": {
        "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere",
        "dom_path": "output.html",
        "favicon_path": "favicon.ico",
        "git_path": "git/",
        "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.defensenews.com",
        "headers_path": "headers.json",
        "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt",
        "index_path": "index.html",
        "media_path": "media/",
        "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html",
        "pdf_path": "output.pdf",
        "readability_path": "readability/content.html",
        "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png",
        "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html",
        "warc_path": "warc/",
        "wget_path": "www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/index.html"
    },
    "domain": "www.defensenews.com",
    "extension": "",
    "hash": "68SP1PMJAR5HPEFMEDGD",
    "history": {
        "archive_org": [],
        "dom": [],
        "favicon": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "curl",
                    "--silent",
                    "--location",
                    "--compressed",
                    "--max-time",
                    "120",
                    "--output",
                    "favicon.ico",
                    "--user-agent",
                    "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                    "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.defensenews.com"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                "end_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:49.737340+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "favicon.ico",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1792145092.254222",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:49.328342+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "git": [],
        "headers": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "curl",
                    "--silent",
                    "--location",
                    "--compressed",
                    "--head",
                    "--max-time",
                    "120",
                    "--user-agent",
                    "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                    "https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                "end_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:50.260709+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "headers.json",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1792145092.254222",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:49.746822+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "htmltotext": [],
        "media": [],
        "mercury": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js",
                    "https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/",
                    "--format=text"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "1.0.0",
                "end_ts": "2026-10-16T13:29:03.098341+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "ArchiveError: Mercury was not able to get article text from the URL",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1792145092.254222",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-10-16T13:29:01.637553+00:00",
                "status": "failed"
            }
        ],
        "pdf": [],
        "readability": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor",
                    "/tmp/tmpcezo61k0",
                    "https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "0.0.11",
                "end_ts": "2026-10-16T13:29:01.623238+00:00",
                "index_texts": [
                    "On the heels of an experimentation ramp-up that has seen the U.S. Army\u2019s high-altitude balloons deployed to Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East, a missile defense official said Wednesday that all options were on the table as the service seeks to make the most of the capability.Col. Joseph Mroszczyk, director of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command\u2019s Transformation Integration Directorate \u2013 Space Superiority (TID-SS), said in a briefing with reporters Wednesday at the Association of the United States Army\u2019s annual meeting that he was pushing for \u201ca family of stratospheric systems\u201d that included high-altitude balloons of all sizes.\u201cWhat that enables us to do is provide space-like capabilities, really exploiting a transition point between what is normally considered the aerial layer and the space domain,\u201d Mroszczyk said. \u201cThat operational space allows some persistence and broad coverage in an area where you can deliver space-like capabilities in terms of payloads, but then also take advantage of the deep access that you get from the stratosphere \u2026 being able to go and take advantage of winds that are pushing you where you want to go already, to be able to get either launched effects or other types of payloads for sensing and communication and extension of your launched effects portfolio.\u201dWhile using balloons as shooters, as Ukraine has reportedly done, likely presents a bigger set of challenges than using them for sensing, Mroszczyk said nothing was off the table.\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say that we\u2019re going to hold back from opportunities and options that would include something that could be kinetic in nature,\u201d he said. \u201cBut right now, we\u2019re doing experiments across the board with all types of different payloads.\u201dThe stratosphere is the layer of Earth\u2019s atmosphere above the lowest layer, the troposphere. The Army uses the term to refer to the stretch from about 60,000 to 100,000 feet, or 11 to 19 miles above Earth. On Wednesday, Mroszczyk invoked the term \u201cspace littorals\u201d to describe the band, referencing the Navy\u2019s language for the shallow waters nearest the coast.High-altitude balloons are not a new military concept. Famously, a Chinese balloon drifted into U.S. airspace in 2023, raising national security alarms and leading to the discovery of several previous incursions that had gone undetected. A high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon floats over Billings, Montana, on Feb. 1, 2023. (Larry Mayer/The Billings Gazette via AP)A 2019 Army University Press article extolled the potential of military balloons as space operations came to the forefront.\u201cIntuitively, balloons at such heights could perform missions such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications, missile warning, and precision navigation and timing,\u201d Lt. Col. Anthony Tingle wrote. \u201cAs the space domain becomes increasingly precarious, balloons offer resilience and redundancy against overhead capability shortfalls.\u201d The Army\u2019s current interest in the balloons and their potential is unprecedented, though. In the briefing on Wednesday, the commander of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Lt. Gen. John Rafferty, said the systems had been deployed for testing and demonstration to Europe, the Pacific and Morocco.Breaking Defense reported further about the balloons\u2019 presence in the Middle East this week, citing officials who said small swarms of a few dozen drones were deployed in the region for testing after a plan to do a much larger demonstration in the Pacific was scrapped.The commander of the Army\u2019s 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force, Col. Wade Germann, told Military Times earlier this week that his unit was actively developing new operating concepts for the balloons.\u201cWe work them in a format called constellation approach, where we\u2019ll put a couple of the high, high-end, really exclusive ones up there with different payloads and systems on them,\u201d Germann said. \u201cAnd then we\u2019ll work in a different venue where we\u2019ll look at cheap, very expendable, rapidly employable, in that you can put up hundreds at a time and create multiple dilemmas for the enemy on.\u201dGermann said the Army was working with industry to develop the most useful capabilities and determine not only the right payloads, but the right lifting gas and launch methodology.\u201cThat\u2019s the way that we\u2019re working with our partners out in the field to gain that real-time feedback and make these things happen,\u201d he said.Over the course of the coming year, Mroszczyk said, the Army planned to conduct multiple balloon experiments aimed at determining the best ways to \u201cexploit the stratosphere.\u201dRafferty said seeing the balloons in action had turned him into a \u201chuge believer\u201d in their potential.\u201cEvery time they are demonstrated in the Pacific or in Europe, there are more and more; they gain more and more support,\u201d he said. \u201cSo we\u2019re, I think, really excited about this next year, about what we\u2019re going to do to further the program.\u201d"
                ],
                "output": "readability",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1792145092.254222",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:59.422802+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "screenshot": [],
        "singlefile": [],
        "title": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "curl",
                    "--silent",
                    "--location",
                    "--compressed",
                    "--max-time",
                    "120",
                    "--user-agent",
                    "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                    "https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)",
                "end_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:59.415204+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "Killer balloons an option as US Army seeks to \u2018exploit the stratosphere\u2019",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1792145092.254222",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:59.378242+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ],
        "wget": [
            {
                "cmd": [
                    "wget",
                    "--no-verbose",
                    "--adjust-extension",
                    "--convert-links",
                    "--force-directories",
                    "--span-hosts",
                    "--no-parent",
                    "-e",
                    "robots=off",
                    "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv",
                    "--timeout=120",
                    "--restrict-file-names=windows",
                    "--page-requisites",
                    "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3",
                    "--compression=auto",
                    "--timestamping",
                    "https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/"
                ],
                "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3",
                "end_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:59.368015+00:00",
                "index_texts": null,
                "output": "www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/index.html",
                "pwd": "/data/archive/1792145092.254222",
                "schema": "ArchiveResult",
                "start_ts": "2026-10-16T13:28:50.270147+00:00",
                "status": "succeeded"
            }
        ]
    },
    "icons": null,
    "is_archived": true,
    "is_static": false,
    "latest": {
        "archive_org": null,
        "dom": null,
        "favicon": "favicon.ico",
        "git": null,
        "media": null,
        "pdf": null,
        "screenshot": null,
        "singlefile": null,
        "title": "Killer balloons an option as US Army seeks to \u2018exploit the stratosphere\u2019",
        "warc": null,
        "wget": "www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/index.html"
    },
    "link_dir": "/data/archive/1792145092.254222",
    "newest_archive_date": "2026-10-16T13:29:01.637553+00:00",
    "num_failures": 1,
    "num_outputs": 5,
    "oldest_archive_date": "2026-10-16T13:28:49.328342+00:00",
    "path": "/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/",
    "schema": "Link",
    "scheme": "https",
    "snapshot_id": "72887f40-799d-4373-9fd7-fd7aa6953762",
    "sources": [
        "/data/sources/1792145092-import.txt"
    ],
    "tags": ",escalation,pool,war-wiki",
    "tags_str": "escalation,pool,war-wiki",
    "timestamp": "1792145092.254222",
    "title": "Killer balloons an option as US Army seeks to \u2018exploit the stratosphere\u2019",
    "updated": "2026-10-16T13:28:49.328158+00:00",
    "updated_date": "2026-10-16 13:28",
    "url": "https://www.defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2026/10/15/killer-balloons-an-option-as-us-army-seeks-to-exploit-the-stratosphere/"
}