Killer balloons an option as US Army seeks to ‘exploit the stratosphere’

On the heels of an experimentation ramp-up that has seen the U.S. Army’s high-altitude balloons deployed to Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East, a missile defense official said Wednesday that all options were on the table as the service seeks to make the most of the capability. Col. Joseph Mroszczyk, director of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command’s Transformation Integration Directorate – Space Superiority (TID-SS), said in a briefing with reporters Wednesday at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting that he was pushing for “a family of stratospheric systems” that included high-altitude balloons of all…