Questions.

A lighter-than-air vehicle held to the ground by a tether. Gas gives it lift, so it can stay up for long periods without engines, carrying sensors, radios or test hardware.

A blimp has engines and flies freely. A weather balloon rises until it bursts. An aerostat has no engines and stays tethered over one place, so it can be recovered and flown again.

From a few hundred metres to several kilometres. Ours is designed for one to five kilometres. The development aerostat flies much lower for now.

Towers stop short of a kilometre. Tethered drones carry less, lower, for shorter. Satellites are too far away to track a small drone in real time. An aerostat holds a heavy payload high for a long time.

The aerostat comes down before the weather exceeds its limits and goes back up when it clears. Ground sensors cover the site in between.

It is an obstacle, so we fly only in approved airspace, with the aerostat and tether marked and lit.

We build autonomous tethered aerostats and run them as a network. The first uses are port and industrial monitoring and an aerospace test range. Counter-drone early warning, relay and signals intelligence follow.

Bengaluru, India. Thinking Near Space Private Limited is incubated at IISc, Bengaluru.

Our first envelopes flew in 2025. We are now testing our autonomous aerostat demonstrator: a small aerostat and the station that launches, recovers and docks it. It has completed over 100 autonomous launch-and-recovery cycles in field testing. Flights at several kilometres come later.

Mostly we sell what they do. Sites pay monthly for coverage, and test customers pay per test. The aerostats and their upkeep stay with us.

The station launches, recovers, docks and services it, and software plans flights around the weather. The aim is a site run by two people or fewer.

Write to us with what you want to test, the question you need answered and your constraints. We are choosing design partners now.

Probably. The payload interface gives standard mounting, power, data, time and position.

Yes, in Bengaluru: senior aerospace, mechanical and electronics engineers, a chief of staff and a mechatronics technician intern. See the careers page.

Yes. Day and night cameras a few hundred metres up see over the container stacks, cranes and tanks that block cameras on poles. Weather and airspace near airports are the main limits.

Monthly coverage after a pilot. We own and run the aerostats, and what the cameras cover and keep is agreed with the site before the first flight.

Yes, with the right sensors on board. The aerostat lifts radar, cameras and receivers above the terrain. How far they detect a drone depends on the sensor, the drone and the weather.

From 2 km up, the radio horizon to a target on the ground is about 185 km. That is a ceiling. A small drone is detected much closer, and we will publish that range once measured.

A radio relay lifted by a tethered aerostat. From above, it links radios that cannot see each other on the ground, such as a patrol in a valley and an operations room behind a ridge.

No radio is. Shorter, stronger links are harder to jam, and we publish each result with the interference it was measured under.

Listening for a drone's radio signals without transmitting. It can find a drone before anyone sees it, but not a drone that is silent.

Each one records exactly when the signal arrives. The tiny differences between those times fix the emitter's position. It takes three aerostats or more.

We are working with design partners first. Tell us about your test and we will tell you which stage can serve it.

The platform is designed for releases up to about 5 km. Tests start lower and step up as each altitude is approved.

In India, in airspace approved for testing. We build in Bengaluru.

Yes. The payload interface gives standard mounting, power, data, time and position, so partner or government-furnished equipment can fly.

Small. The station does the handling, and the first stage targets two people or fewer. We will publish measured crew numbers as we go.

That is what the early-warning payload is for. From above, it looks over the stacks and cranes. Detection range depends on the sensor and the weather, and we will publish it once measured.

The aerostat comes down before the weather arrives. Ground sensors cover the port until it flies again.

With cameras and radar on board, the whole site from one view: the perimeter, activity, drones overhead, and early signs of smoke or flooding.

Yes, that is the relay payload's job. It links crews and vehicles where ground radios cannot reach. We measure each link on site before promising a range.