 R&D phase from then until now," Knoblach says. Frische would eventually become Space Data's vice president of technology and chief technology officer. Outside of technical issues, a big part of Space Data's work over the past several years has been ironing out federal regulatory issues with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). "We now have a waiver from the FCC to allow us to operate this system like commercial wireless spectrum," says Knoblach. Space Data has also acquired 1.4MHz of frequency space, at a cost of $4.2 million, in the 900-MHz band, necessary for transmitting cell phone signals from the earth to the balloons and back again. Eventually, Space Data wants to deploy SkySites internationally, supporting both voice and data communications. Another company looking toward balloon-based communications is Global Aerospace Corp. The company is planning a new type of satellite that could provide communications in remote areas of the world with no technological infrastructure. The technology, which it has dubbed "Stratospheric Satellites," consists of NASA-developed "super-pressure balloons" that fly at 110,000 feet (Fig. 6-1). Combined with steering systems and a solar array used for power, the balloons can carry payloads up to the size and weight of a small truck. Global Aerospace has developed a trajectory control and solar array system for the superpressure balloons, allowing them to be steered over disaster areas and powered over the course of its long life. At a current cost of $1.75 million per unit for development, and a projected life-cycle cost of $500,000 or less per unit in production, the Altadena, California-based company believes that Stratospheric Satellites can be a low-cost alternative to remote communica- tions platforms provided by aircraft and space-based satellites. Because Stratospheric Satellites fly much closer to Earth than space-based satellites, they provide 20 times higher resolution surface images of disasters and 160,000 times highe