The War Zone has reported:

The U.S. Army’s top space and missile defence commander now describes high-altitude balloons as a “game-changing” capability, after initially doubting their value. Lt. Gen. John Rafferty made the comments during a media roundtable on the sidelines of the Association of the U.S. Army’s main annual convention, where Army Col. Joseph Mroszczyk also discussed the service’s balloon work.

The remarks followed disclosures that the Army cancelled a planned balloon swarm test in the Pacific last year and redirected the systems to support operations in the Middle East. The timing and duration of that deployment have not been disclosed. Breaking Defense first reported the shift on Monday.

“I’ll just give a little personal history on high-altitude balloons. I started in the Army Futures Command in the Long Range Fires-Cross Functional Team. There was this talk of high-altitude balloons. I think it was the ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] task force was talking about it,” Rafferty said. “It just sounded crazy to me that we were considering this.”

He said his view changed several years later, when he and SMDC Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Jackson were in the multi-domain community in Europe. Rafferty went with the 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force to Morocco for training and experimentation, where he saw the balloons operating.

“[I] saw the high-altitude balloons in action, and I was immediately convinced after I understood better how they worked and how their ability to station-keep, and their ability to sense and even deliver effects from high altitude. It was game-changing for me,” Rafferty said.

The Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) is considering balloons for a range of roles. Mroszczyk leads SMDC’s Transformation Integration Directorate for Space Superiority, known as TID-Space Superiority, and said he wants the Army to develop a “family” of stratospheric platforms, spanning smaller and larger systems.

“In my former role as an MDTF commander, we experimented a lot in the Pacific with those [balloon-based] capabilities. We have leveraged different size platforms,” Mroszczyk said. “In this [TID-Space Superiority] role, as a proponent, what I’m pushing for is a family of stratospheric systems that really covers smaller size all the way up to larger size types of platforms in terms of balloons.”

He described the stratosphere as an operating layer between the air and space domains. The Army focuses on altitudes of about 60,000 to 100,000 feet, where balloons could carry payloads that provide space-like capabilities while benefiting from persistence and broad area coverage.

“What that enables us to provide is space-like capabilities, really exploiting a transition point between what is normally considered the aerial layer and the space domain,” Mroszczyk said. “Really, where you go from about 60,000 feet to 100,000 feet is what we focus on in the stratosphere. That operational space allows some persistence and broad coverage in an area where you can deliver space-like capabilities in terms of payloads, but then also take advantage of the deep access that you get from a stratospheric balloon.”

Balloons can remain aloft for days, weeks or months, and some systems available on the market can adjust altitude and hold position despite prevailing winds after navigating to an assigned operating area. Their height can give radars, cameras and other sensors a wide field of view in multiple directions. At 60,000 feet or higher, they can also observe some denied areas while remaining in international airspace and farther from potential threats.

The Army has discussed using balloons for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, communications relays, and as launch platforms for drones and other expendable payloads. Mroszczyk said the service is examining how winds could help carry platforms toward desired locations, where they could release “launched effects” or other sensing and communications payloads.

“So, being able to go, take advantage of winds that are pushing you where you want to go already to be able to get either launched effects or other types of payloads for sensing and communications and extension of your launched effects portfolio,” he said. “That is a way that we can help exploit the stratosphere, and we’re looking to do that throughout multiple experiments over the course of the coming year.”

The U.S. military uses “launched effects” as a general term for uncrewed aircraft launched from platforms in the air, on the ground or at sea. The category includes systems for surveillance and reconnaissance, electronic warfare, signal relay and kinetic attack. A photograph accompanying the Army’s discussion showed a high-altitude balloon carrying an Apollo-R drone during Exercise Orient Shield 26 in Japan earlier this year.

Mroszczyk said forthcoming experiments will further demonstrate how balloons can be commanded and controlled and connected through networks to other Army capabilities. The Army had planned a Pacific demonstration last year involving balloons operating in autonomous swarms, but the assets were redirected to the Middle East to support operations under U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM.

“We were asked to pivot and do some experimentation in combination with operations, and we pivoted and supported operations in CENTCOM [U.S. Central Command],” Andrew Evans, director of strategy and transformation with the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, or G-2, told Breaking Defense.

“They were effective for the mission that they were assigned,” Evans said, according to Breaking Defense, while declining to provide further details. He noted that balloons can be sensitive to temperature and other environmental conditions. Evans also said the Army received substantial help from vendors and that moving systems between theatres can reveal which capabilities the military needs to own and which services vendors can provide.

The Army’s attention to balloons is part of a broader plan for a persistent, layered sensor architecture. The service has discussed balloons as part of that vision, including their potential to carry drones and other payloads, for at least six years. In 2020, the Army released a graphic showing a notional operational view of a “Multi Domain Sensing System” that included high-altitude balloons.

The use of balloons for military purposes has also expanded internationally. China has demonstrated balloon and other lighter-than-air systems for intelligence gathering and other missions across the Pacific. A Chinese surveillance balloon passed over parts of the United States and Canada in 2023, bringing the issue to wider public attention after years of coverage by The War Zone.

Other countries, including U.S. allies and partners, are fielding balloon-based and other lighter-than-air systems. In the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, Ukrainian forces have used balloons to conduct kinetic attacks and launch drones, while Russian forces have used balloons as decoys intended to confuse and misdirect air defences.

A social media post dated May 20, 2026, described a U.S.-made Hornet middle-range strike uncrewed aerial vehicle being tested with a balloon-assisted launch system. The post said the arrangement could substantially increase the aircraft’s original range of about 100 kilometres and that Ukrainian forces were actively using Hornet OWA UAVs to strike Russian logistics and other targets.

The Army’s Middle East deployment points to efforts to put balloons to operational use more widely, though the service is still relying on capabilities described as experimental. Earlier this year, the Army highlighted the creation of a new schoolhouse for high-altitude balloon training as part of the work to build that capacity.

Rafferty’s account signals support within the Army for continuing balloon programmes, while Mroszczyk’s description of planned experimentation indicates that the service is still developing the systems and the ways they will operate. The Army is looking at multiple platform sizes, payload types and connections to other capabilities, with further experiments expected over the coming year.