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The Air Force has granted Space Data Corporation a $49 million contract to perfect and deploy its balloon-based communications platform for battle conditions. In tests conducted by the Air Force, the range of radios now used by ground troops was extended from 10 miles to 400 miles. The company's SkySite, dubbed StarFighter by the military, is a platform suspended from a weather balloon at 65,000 to 100,000 feet. At that altitude it is out of range — and often out of sight — of hostile forces, yet dramatically extends radio communications.

The balloon rely upon the very steady and predictable winds at the higher altitudes for locomotion. Just as important, ground troops would be able to communicate directly with air support instead of going through an intermediary. The StarFighter platforms can be launched by a single individual and cover a huge geographic area at altitude. Actually, two such balloons would provide radio coverage for all of Iraq.

The Space Data technology is by no means experimental. The company has been flying balloons over the southwestern United States with more than 15,000 successful flights to date.