  Stratospheric balloons offer accessible and affordable platforms for
observations in atmosphere-constrained wavelength ranges. At the same time,
they can serve as an effective step for technology demonstration towards future
space applications of instruments and other hardware. The Stratospheric UV
Demonstrator of an Imaging Observatory (STUDIO) is a balloon-borne platform and
mission carrying an imaging micro-channel plate (MCP) detector on a 0.5 m
aperture telescope. STUDIO is currently planned to fly during the summer
turnaround conditions over Esrange, Sweden, in the 2022 season. For details on
the ultraviolet (UV) detector, see the contribution of Conti et al. to this
symposium. The scientific goal of the mission is to survey for variable hot
compact stars and flaring M-dwarf stars within the galactic plane. At the same
time, the mission acts as a demonstrator for a versatile and scalable
astronomical balloon platform as well as for the aforementioned MCP instrument.
The gondola is designed to allow the use of different instruments or
telescopes. Furthermore, it is designed to serve for several, also longer,
flights, which are envisioned under the European Stratospheric Balloon
Observatory (ESBO) initiative. In this paper, we present the design and current
status of manufacturing and testing of the STUDIO platform. We furthermore
present the current plans for the flight and observations from Esrange.
