高空气球能代替卫星吗？

Could high-altitude balloons replace need for satellites?

Project Loon, part of Google parent Alphabet, is one of the first to exploit these countervailing winds with high-altitude balloons to provide communications in remote or disaster-hit areas. The original plan was a stream of balloons following the prevailing wind, but researchers found the balloons could stay in place by using countervailing winds at different heights. Sophisticated machine-learning algorithms change height to catch the right wind.

作为谷歌父字母表的一部分，龙计划是首批利用高空气球抵消风，在偏远或受灾地区提供通信的项目之一。最初的计划是沿着盛行风吹一系列气球，但研究人员发现，通过在不同高度使用抵消风，气球可以保持在原位。复杂的机器学习算法改变高度以捕捉正确的风向。

Project Loon gave internet access to 300,000 people in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria destroyed infrastructure in 2017. This proved that the concept works, even though it is still at the experimental stage.

2017年，飓风玛丽亚摧毁了波多黎各的基础设施，龙项目为波多黎共30万人提供了互联网接入。这证明了这个概念是可行的，尽管它仍处于实验阶段。

Read more at BBC

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