Google's Project Loon is almost ready for lift-off around the world.

After successfully piloting its balloon-based Internet service in New Zealand last year and flying millions of test kilometers around the world, Google is now scaling up the effort. In a new video, the Web giant offers a glimpse at how the Project Loon team is tackling the challenges involved with "moving from small scale, one-off launches and tests, to the scale and automation required to make balloon-powered Internet for all a reality."

Google has a pretty lofty goal with Project Loon — to use its high-flying balloons to bring Internet to the almost two-thirds of people in the world who don't have it today.

"The very first tests we did showed that it could work," Project Lead Mike Cassidy says in the video.

But, after that test, the team realized it would need a few key things to scale the effort — namely, a manufacturing system that could quickly produce a large number of balloons, a mission control system to keep track of the balloons, and an operations team to launch the balloons and recover them when they're ready to come down.

"Each piece of the process… had to scale up," Cassidy said. "It was pretty challenging — getting the balloons to be more durable and more long lasting."

For a while, he said, many of them leaked for one reason or another, and would come down in a matter of hours to a few days. "Now, our balloons last over 100 days," Cassidy said.

Google also created its own manufacturing facility with automated systems that can produce a balloon in just a few hours. Previously, it took the team three or four days to tape together a single balloon by hand.

"We're getting close to the point where can roll out thousands of balloons," he said. "In the beginning, it was all we could do to launch one balloon a day, now with our automated crane system, we can launch dozens of balloons a day, for every crane we have."

But launching a balloon is just the first step. Providing continuous Internet service requires a "complex choreography," where thousands of balloons are automatically steered through the air. Google's mission control system allows the team to track every balloon it has deployed and optimally position them to provide coverage where it is needed.

"We've flown in the tropics, we've flown in the arctic regions, the technology is working." Cassidy said. "We're getting close to the point where we can bring the Internet to people around the world."

For more on Google's latest Project Loon efforts, check out the video below.