A pressurised capsule, four guests, and a stratospheric balloon that rises in silence to the edge of space
Zephalto is a French company building passenger flights to the stratosphere by balloon rather than by rocket. Its pressurised capsule carries four guests and a pilot to 25 kilometres above the Earth — higher than 98 per cent of the atmosphere — on a six-hour flight from a spaceport in France. Through our partnership with Zephalto, Perfect.Live members can reserve seats or privatise a capsule on the first passenger flights.
The company was founded in 2016 by Vincent Farret d’Astiès, who is also its chief pilot, and it has spent a decade in development alongside CNES, the French space agency, drawing on its sixty years of experience with stratospheric balloons.
Twenty-five kilometres is not space in the formal sense — the recognised boundary sits at 100 kilometres — but it is high enough for the sky to turn black in daylight, for the curvature of the Earth to become obvious, and for the thin blue band of the atmosphere to show along the horizon. From the capsule the view stretches for around 1,400 kilometres.
It is the perspective astronauts describe when they talk about the overview effect, reached without a launch, without acceleration forces, and without astronaut training.
A Zephalto stratospheric balloon flight is slow by design. The balloon climbs at around four metres per second, so the ascent alone takes an hour and a half. Three hours are then spent at altitude, which is the heart of the journey: time to watch the light change across the horizon rather than a few minutes of weightlessness. The descent is as gradual as the climb, with the crew explaining what lies below all the way down.
There is no engine and no vibration. The capsule is pressurised and climate-controlled, and the whole flight takes place in near silence.
The interior was designed by the architect Joseph Dirand — pale, minimal, and arranged around wide panoramic windows that take up much of the cabin. The structure is carbon composite, and with only four guests on board, the capsule can be reserved for a single group, so a flight can mark a birthday, an anniversary, or a wedding with nobody else present.
The edge of space flight is conceived as an expression of French art de vivre as much as an ascent. Menus are created by leading French chefs, a sommelier guides a tasting of French wines during the flight, and a professional photographer can join to help guests capture the view. An opening ceremony before lift-off and a celebration after landing frame the day.
Zephalto puts emissions at around 26.6 kg of CO₂ per passenger per flight — roughly a 224-kilometre car journey — because the lift comes from the balloon rather than from rocket fuel, and both the envelope and the capsule are reused. Every flight also carries science: instruments on board collect stratospheric data for climate and atmospheric research, in collaboration with CNES and the Occitanie region.
Tell us who you would like beside you at 25 kilometres and we will arrange the flight and everything around it
Zephalto unveiled its first passenger capsule near Toulouse in 2026, with test flights to follow before passengers board. Around a hundred seats have already been reserved, and with four guests per flight the first season is a short list. Longer flights, including a night spent in the stratosphere, are on the company’s roadmap for later years.
A French company developing passenger flights to the stratosphere in a pressurised capsule lifted by a balloon, with the French space agency CNES.
To 25 kilometres, above 98 per cent of the atmosphere. That is below the formal boundary of space at 100 kilometres, but high enough to see the curvature of the Earth against a black sky.
Six hours in total: an hour and a half climbing, three hours at altitude, and an hour and a half descending.
Four guests and a pilot. The capsule can be reserved for a single group.
No astronaut training is needed. There is no launch and no acceleration, and the capsule is pressurised like an aircraft cabin.
The capsule is being developed to the same certification standards as civil aviation, under European Aviation Safety Agency requirements, with technical support from CNES.
A black sky at midday, the curve of the Earth, and six hours of silence above it
