Google has partnered with the French space agency, the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, or CNES, with a goal of reaching higher ground with its Project Loon initiative.
Project Loon is essentially a program by Google to bring free Internet to developing countries through low-flying weather balloons that project Wi-Fi signals.
The two companies remained relatively quiet about their plans to partner, although CNES did reveal that Google would be taking advantage of the space agency's expertise in balloon technology. Google, on the other hand, will conduct long-running balloon campaigns as a part of CNES' study of the ozone and stratosphere.
Project Loon was first conceived by Google X, the division of the company that is dedicated to "moon shots," or projects that are ahead of their time and may not have immediate impact but have a high potential for future payout.
The partnership may have impacts beyond Project Loon, however. Google has been under increased scrutiny in Europe, with the European Parliament promoting a breakup of Google and Google chosing to shut down Google News in Spain after new laws were passed requiring the company to pay fees to the publications from which it takes news snippets.
While neither company has said that the move is designed to improve relations in Europe, it is likely that Google sees increased resistance to its services as a threat.
Even without the help of CNES, Google has reached impressive heights with Project Loon. The balloons now survive over 100 days in flight, which is a milestone that was not expected by experts. One balloon managed to stay in the air for a whopping 134 days, a feat that one expert said was "absolutely impossible -- just talk to anyone in the scientific community."
Google X is known for a number of other interesting projects. For example, that division of Google is behind Google Glass, an augmented reality headset that allows users to perform many functions without having to reach for their phone. It's also behind Project Ara, which is a modular smartphone that allows users to remove and replace certain components of a smartphone to be upgraded as technology gets better.
In total, Google wants to deploy 100,000 balloons to offer Internet access in remote locations around the world, retrieving them when they lose air and hit the ground. This way of doing things is a little impractical, which led to CNES at first being resistant to the idea of a partnership. In the end, however, a deal was struck.
