Per ardua ad nebula?

[Al R]

The future, not so much in the stars.. maybe just above the clouds.

This isn't military in the strictest sense, but given the costings, HAPS certainly have potential military applications - the demise of conventional communication and surveillance satellites? Lots of great commercial and business opportunities out there for all our burgeoning numbers of experienced UAV fleet managers and operators too, seeking to get into something at creation.

The Drone That Is Years Ahead of Facebook and Google: Video - Bloomberg (http://www.bloomberg.com/video/the-drone-that-is-years-ahead-of-facebook-and-google-HKnnPVh5TQaCm3fOGLNGtg.html)

[MAINJAFAD]

All well and good that they have a platform that can stay up as long as that thing can. How are they going to power the payload overnight? the batteries for that would have to provide many tens of amp/hours to be able to provide the comms coverage that thing could give. Other than that it would provide an ideal platform as a military comms relay at the frequencies required to shift large amounts of data and overcome line of sight issues with VHF and UHF.

[Chugalug2]

Indeed, MAINJAFAD, and not only the extent of the payload power requirements, but of the payload itself. Given that the key to the airframe performance itself is minimal AUW, the implication is that the payload offered will be minimal also.

Despite the state of the art these days in electronics, optics, etc, will this cut the mustard? It seems to me that will be the real challenge to this concept, rather than the vehicle itself. Very interesting though. Thanks Al R.

[MAINJAFAD]

Quite right Chug, though I suspect with the exception of the transmitting elements, quite a lot of miniaturisation could be done. The power issues however may be the main problem. Not only do you have the problem that a satellite has, in that you have to charge the batteries while operating the equipment (For those who have never had any dealings with the standard Comms Sat in geo stationary / synchronous orbit, they do have to operate in the shadow of the earth for a sizable period of the day), You also have the issue that unlike the Satellite, this thing cannot optimise the angle of the Solar panels to give the best power input from the sun and fly the course it has to do to stay on station at the same time.

[Lima Juliet]

Al

This is nothing new. The QinetiQ Zephyr on which this is based first flew over 9 years ago and I think the program started 11 years ago. Here is Zephyr in the earlier days:

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/zephyr/images/3-zephyr.jpg

Zephyr set the endurance record in 2010 and I believe they landed because they were getting bored!!!

I agree there is a future in this more than those stupid blimps from Cardington. :ok:

LJ

[MAINJAFAD]

Thanks for the pointer Leon, 11 days airborne in winter (which I assume was somewhere between 30 and 53 degrees north), I'm impressed. 5 Kg payload on the other hand (both according to Wikipedia), not so.