In the current renaissance of 'lighter-than-air' (LTA) vehicles, there are major efforts to adapt LTA's as unmanned, high-altitude platforms. With abundant applications in areas such as remote sensing, telecommunications, and in situ environmental monitoring, LTA's could conceivably perform their designated functions for years at a time while station-keeping in the stratosphere. In this context, a series of balloon launching tests were conducted at the Port of Hitachi, located 150 km north of Tokyo. In these tests, a high-speed ascending balloon attained a 17 km altitude. Balloons were equipped with pressure adjustable valves in order to keep their envelop shape and necessary rigidity in their ascent processes and not to burst by steep built-ups of pressure difference. For the descent process, balloons were designed to intake the atmospheric air by electric fans and to keep the envelop shape. The following stratospheric flight tests are planned for solar powered LTA's in the coming summer. The paper introduces test methods and the status quo of the project.
High altitude powered ballon launching for stratospheric shuttling test
Startversuche eines angetriebenen Höhenballons für den Stratosphärenpendelverkehr
1998
9 Seiten, 6 Bilder, 11 Quellen
Conference paper
English
High altitude powered balloon for stratospheric shuttling test
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