SkySight lands £720,000 UK grant for stratospheric flight platform

What's the deal? Brisbane startup SkySightDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has been awarded £718,586 (roughly $960,763) by the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The grant funds a unified weather forecasting and flight-planning platform for High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS) — aircraft designed to operate persistently in the stratosphere.

What's the endgame? SkySight's platform will help operators plan routes and keep aircraft above a target area while accounting for changing weather, solar energy, and beamed power. Planned features include forecasts updated every 20 minutes, very high-resolution atmospheric modelling, and 4D route planning across location, altitude, and time.

Why now? The grant falls under ARIA's Enduring Atmospheric Platforms program, backed by £70 million over 3.5 years and led by program director Rico Chandra. Its central goal: demonstrate that communications payloads can be kept aloft and powered in the stratosphere above the UK for a week.

The project will run through SkySight's UK subsidiary, building on its stratospheric wave forecasting work for The Perlan ProjectDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, BAE SystemsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Kea Aerospace. The platform will also identify favourable conditions for radio-frequency and laser power beaming, with API integrations linking forecasts to partner aircraft tracking and control systems.

SkySight is one of 18 funded teams developing technologies to make stratospheric operations reliable and cost-effective. The aim is to support advanced communications and connectivity for underserved regions.

The signal: The grant sits in the lower band for deals of this type, reflecting an early-stage, research-driven bet rather than a commercial round. It marks growing investment in HAPS as a bridge between drones and satellites — an infrastructure layer for connectivity where ground networks and orbital assets fall short.

Read more: spaceconnectonline.com.au

Image credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video