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.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number