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.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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