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Mission Stratos takes Vision Pro 32 kilometers above Earth

The Arluma360 tour is built from footage captured with an 11K 360-degree camera during a 14-hour scientific balloon flight over Canada.

· 3 min read

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The STRATOS balloon gondola above clouds with Earth’s curved horizon and a thin blue atmosphere against black sky
The STRATOS gondola looked down on Earth from roughly 32 kilometers during its 14-hour flight in 2025.Image: The Dorothy Project

Mission Stratos places Apple Vision Pro owners beside a high-altitude balloon as it looks down on Earth from 32 kilometers above Canada.

The tour is available inside Arluma360 (opens in a new tab), a Vision Pro app built for immersive 360-degree places and journeys. Instead of watching the flight inside a flat frame, viewers can look around the gondola and the planet below it.

The footage came from a real scientific flight by The Dorothy Project. That makes this more than a simulated trip toward space.

The flight behind the footage

The Dorothy Project joined the Canadian Space Agency and France’s CNES for the 2025 STRATOS campaign (opens in a new tab) in Timmins, Ontario. The Canadian Space Agency lists DOROTHY (opens in a new tab) among seven Canadian payloads selected to capture 360-degree images and video for science and immersive experiences.

The team spent eight months building Dorothy 8, a 24-kilogram camera module carrying a modified Insta360 Titan, three smaller cameras, a spatial audio microphone, sensors, and backup computers.

The CNES gondola carried about 10 experiments during a 14-hour flight and reached 32 kilometers. That is still within the stratosphere, but it is high enough to reveal Earth’s curved horizon, thin blue atmosphere, and black sky in the same view.

Mission Stratos playing in Arluma360 with the app’s floating controls over a view of Earth and its blue atmosphere
Arluma360 keeps its playback controls within reach while Mission Stratos surrounds the viewer with the balloon’s 360-degree footage.Image: Arluma Studios

I can genuinely say that I ‘got it’ when I first viewed this footage in Vision Pro.

Mel Randall on LinkedIn

Randall was describing the overview effect, the powerful sense of awe and connection some astronauts report after seeing Earth from space. Mission Stratos brings that kind of perspective to Vision Pro owners at home.

How to see Mission Stratos

Arluma360 is free to download and requires Apple Vision Pro with visionOS 26 or later. Mission Stratos is available as an in-app purchase. The price shown in the US App Store is $2.99, and local pricing may vary.

Mission Stratos gives Vision Pro owners a front-row seat 32 kilometers above Earth. This is the kind of trip a headset should make possible.

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