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Unmanned Aerial Telecom Relays

Posted by michael on from the it's-a-bird-it's-a-plane dept.

Brussel writes "SkyTower in collaboration with the Japan Ministry of Telecommunications (CRL/TAO) and NASA has successfully completed a series of commercial telecommunications tests -- the world's first from more than 60,000 feet in the stratosphere. The tests, which began three weeks ago, were conducted from Pathfinder-Plus, an unmanned solar-electric aircraft developed by AeroVironment." There's another press release here.

3 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Just don't by af_robot · · Score: 4, Funny

    call it Skynet :)
    We know what then may happens...

  2. Re:Airships by mikerich · · Score: 5, Informative
    Wouldn't airships be so much better?

    Yes they would; lower fuel consumption, much greater endurance, less risk of a catastrophic failure - and lots of area for solar cells that can help power the relay.

    You have to design a special ship, normal airships fly relatively low and their useful load drops off quite rapidly with altitude. You have to think about building BIG for quite a small payload. Then consider things like reliability, redundancy and UV light eating away at the envelope. But it should be doable.

    A British company, the Advanced Technology Group is prototyping just such a relay. It's called StratSat and the prototype could fly in the next year or two.

    Best wishes,
    Mike.

  3. Weather effects by SgtChaireBourne · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Since these are supposed to be up there 24/7, it does look like they'd churn the atmosphere a bit. What these don't do in magnitude they make up for in duration. What kind of effect would this have on weather, especially at that altitude?

    Could these platforms be mounted with catalysts to remove chemical pollutants?

    --
    Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.