Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the outcome was of the high-altitude uncrewed balloon tests conducted in South Dakota, USA under Project Aether.

The trials in South Dakota were successful and achieved or surpassed all intended test objectives.

The objectives included:

• Providing 24-hour Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) coverage in high-latitude winter conditions at high-altitude;
• Locating, identifying, and tracking signals, and disseminating data over both Line of Sight and Satellite communications;
• Maintaining continuous endurance at high altitude;
• and
• Enabling airborne handover of ISR coverage between different platforms.