Meteomatics Launches Sustainable Alternative to Weather Balloons with Meteoglider

Associated Press

20-03-2025

Weather Intelligence Company Introduces Reusable Radiosondes with Acquisition of R2Home
EXTON, PA, UNITED STATES, March 20, 2025 / EINPresswire.com / -- Meteomatics, the weather intelligence and technology company that enables the world's leading companies to accurately forecast the weather's impact on business, today announced the global availability of its Meteoglider, following the acquisition of R2Home and its reusable radiosonde technology. The lightweight glider collects the same high-quality atmospheric data as a radiosonde launched by a weather balloon, but enables organizations to bring back the radiosondes for reuse. This introduces a more sustainable and cost-effective option to conventional radiosondes that typically disappear with weather balloons as they drift and burst at high altitudes. With the Meteoglider, Meteomatics offers companies and national weather services the first solution to recover and reuse radiosondes at scale.
Weather balloons have played an integral role in global weather observation for nearly 100 years, carrying radiosondes up to around 100,000 feet in the stratosphere to collect data on temperature, humidity, wind, and more. Out of the approximately 600,000 radiosondes launched every year globally, however, only 20% are recovered and less than 1% are used again with the majority of them lost to the Earth, littering forests, oceans and other remote locations. As businesses continue to navigate weather's increasing impact on their operations, the financial and environmental cost of deploying single-use radiosondes for weather monitoring is becoming less viable.
Meteomatics now introduces the ability for companies and national weather services to reuse radiosondes at scale with the Meteoglider. The lightweight, half-pound foam glider is equipped with a radiosonde and a sophisticated guidance system that allows it to return to the launch site or a designated GPS location in as little as 25 minutes, at a speed of 140 meters, or 450+ feet, per second. This technology allows the Meteoglider to be reused as many as 50 times with hundreds of available operational hours.
The Meteoglider collects the same high-quality atmospheric data as a conventional radiosonde, but due to its ability to successfully return back to its launch point or another location, companies and national weather services can also collect additional weather data upon its descent at a target location in the atmosphere. The technology has also achieved record-breaking heights, achieving stable flight as high as 34,300 meters, or over 110,000 feet– the highest known altitude for a glider flight.
'Radiosondes offer essential data for companies to power weather forecasts, climate models and more, but the astronomical economic and environmental cost is not sustainable as these radiosondes are carried by weather balloons and never recovered,' said Martin Fengler, CEO of Meteomatics. 'The Meteoglider's ability to reuse these radiosondes at scale for the first time is a game changer in the weather industry and will open up numerous possibilities for the future of weather forecasting. We look forward to the continued innovation of the Meteogliders under Yohan's lead as he joins the Meteomatics team.'
The launch of the Meteoglider follows Meteomatics' acquisition of R2Home. Founded by Yohan Hadji in 2019, R2Home developed its glidersonde to reduce the environmental and economic impact of conventional radiosondes launched by weather balloons. The company's reusable radiosonde technology, now the Meteoglider, will continue to innovate and scale under Meteomatics. Hadji also joins the Meteomatics team to lead the development and manufacturing of Meteogliders.
'The Meteoglider paves the way for the recovery and reuse of radiosondes. It moves the industry towards greater efficiency and less waste in the atmospheric measurement that's essential to the entire meteorology chain– from risk warning to climatology,' said Bruno Piguet, Head of the High-Altitude Observation, Meteo-France.
Meteomatics' Meteogliders join the company's autonomous weather drones, dubbed 'Meteodrones,' as part of the company's proprietary aircrafts built for improved weather forecasts. The Meteodrones fly up to 20,000 feet above the Earth's surface to address gaps in existing networks, forecasting local weather events such as fog, precipitation, wind, hail, storms and changing temperatures. Together, these technologies complement each other by expanding the scope and accuracy of atmospheric data collection and introduce a more sustainable and accurate approach to weather forecasting.
About Meteomatics
Meteomatics is a weather intelligence and technology company that enables precision forecasts of the weather's impact on businesses anywhere in the world at any time. More than 600 companies, including CVS Health, Swiss Re, McCain, NASA, Honda, Airbus, Stellantis and UK Power Networks, rely on Meteomatics for weather data that can significantly impact everything from energy savings, logistics, and process automation to risk management and product design. The company's robust approach to weather data collection, modeling, visualization and delivery rivals even the most sophisticated government and commercial services. Its autonomous Meteodrone, paired with high-resolution weather models, enables granular visibility (down to a single square km) into weather phenomena that traditional weather sensing technology does not regularly or accurately observe. Meteomatics is headquartered in Switzerland, with local operations in the U.S., the UK, Germany, Norway and Spain.
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