It is the ultimate in unmanned drones: The Pentagon has revealed plans for a surveillance aircraft that will fly more than 19km above the ground for 10 years without landing.
“It is absolutely revolutionary,” said Werner Dahm, chief scientist for the US Air Force. “It is a cross between a satellite and a Global Hawk [spy plane].”
The 137m craft will be developed at a cost of US$400 million, with a prototype one-third of that length due to be ready by 2014.
The US military hopes the blimp, floating 19km above a surveillance area in near space, will give it a better understanding of events on the ground. It will be equipped with a radar system able to provide unprecedented detail over a wide area from hundreds of kilometers away.
“It is constant surveillance, uninterrupted,” Dahm said. “To be able to observe over a long period of time, you get a much better understanding of how an adversary operates.”
The craft — called Isis — will be powered by hydrogen fuel cells recharged by its own solar panels, and will be filled with helium, which will give the craft its shape.
The deployment of a blimp will raise memories in the US of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, when three people died after the airship went down in flames in New Jersey.
Despite falling out of favor in subsequent years, airships have made a recent comeback. A Silicon Valley company plans to offer passenger sightseeing tours on the 74m-long zeppelin it is developing at Moffett Fields, a historic airfield that was home to a 239m dirigible operated by the Army Air Corps, the precursor of the US Air Force.
That craft crashed in 1935, ending the army’s first experiment with airships.
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