US Army Science Board Sees Potential in Lighter-Than-Air Platforms
11th February 2009 from Inside Missile Defense
The US Army should invest in further "experimentation and potential acquisition" of lighter-than-air platforms, which -- like unmanned aerial vehicles -- allow the service to depend less on costly commercial satellites, according to the latest Army Science Board report. The document, dated September 2008 but only publicly released in late December, was obtained by the publication Inside the Army. In the report, titled "Platforms for Persistent Communications, Surveillance and Reconnaissance," the board says it "investigated capabilities of platforms deployed in space, near space and lower altitudes and assessed trade-offs among benefits, weaknesses, costs and logistics burdens associated with platform types." Despite advances in LTA technologies, the panel noted scepticism within the Army ('giggle factor') that impeded full consideration as CSR platforms, similar to attitudes toward UAVs in years past," the report continues. At the same time, the report indicates that unmanned platforms are "increasingly effective and accepted" and "technological advances supporting untethered LTAs are emerging rapidly." In the findings portion of the document, the board says that medium- and high-altitude untethered LTA airships scored as well or better than UAVs at comparable altitudes for persistent CSR. It notes that medium-altitude LTA airships "offer promising capabilities for CSR in the near term due to rapidly maturing capabilities based on a number of factors including time on station, all weather capability, flying hour cost and vulnerability." However, the board was less impressed with other technologies. For instance, LTA aerostats "compared poorly" to LTA airships, and the panel found that "innovative" low-earth orbit "did not rate well because of limited time on station." The report concludes that "high altitude LTA and UAV platforms permit offload of communication traffic from high-cost commercial satellites and future military satellites," such as the Transformational Satellite Communications System. "The maturation and potential payoff of LTA technology warrants further investment in experimentation and potential acquisition because of persistence on station," the report adds. Consequently, the Army Science Board recommends that Training and Doctrine Command assign "proponency for LTA in the controlled airspace to the Aviation Center." Additionally, the board calls for accelerated employment of medium-altitude LTA prototypes for joint experiments in operational environments, an increased investment in maturing high-altitude LTA airships so they can be used as CSR platforms and the establishment of a collaborative LTA Integrated Product Team. The report also recommends Training and Doctrine Command conduct an integrated analysis of alternatives "that includes persistent [communications] and [surveillance and reconnaissance] payloads, UAV and LTA platforms, large aircraft (e.g., KC-135), and commercial and military satellites that explicitly addresses alternative mixes of capabilities."
