Florida Firm Testing "Stratellites" For Imaging, Telecom
By PETER B. de SELDING Space News Staff Writer posted: 06 April 2006 11:11 am ET
A small Florida company is flight testing a line of high-altitude airships, or what it calls “stratellites,” this year and has attracted tentative support from Raytheon to develop airships for military and civilian telecommunications and observation.
Sanswire Networks LLC, a subsidiary of GlobeTel Communications Corp. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., already has tested its first prototype airship and expects an evolved model to be flight tested in June from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The June test is designed as a technology demonstrator as Sanswire perfects the design of its product.
Sanswire President Robert A. Jones said March 31 that the company’s Sanswire 2 vehicle, measuring 38 meters long and 8 meters wide, will attempt to position itself at 6,858 meters in altitude for periods of at least several hours, and perhaps overnight.
Tests of the first prototype, Sanswire 1, were conducted in May 2005 in Florida, and an initial floating test of Sanswire 2 was completed Feb. 28 in Palmdale, Calif.
GlobeTel has invested about $2 million so far in direct financing of Sanswire’s technology. Its system resembles work being done for the U.S. Missile Defense Agency by Lockheed Martin Corp. Lockheed Martin in December won a $149.2 million contract to deliver a prototype High Altitude Airship in 2009.
Sanswire is testing now, and as of yet it has received “not a penny” of funding from the U.S. Defense Department or the Missile Defense Agency, Jones said. The company has elicited interest from government agencies in Colombia and Chile, which would like to use a high-altitude system to provide broadband communications links in rural areas for far less cost than a satellite system, and for border surveillance.
“We are absolutely not going after the satellite market,” Jones said. “We think we are complementary to it, just as we are complementary to UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles].”
Frank R. Prautzsch, director of network centric systems in Raytheon’s Rapid Initiatives Group in Marlborough, Mass., said Raytheon has looked at Sanswire’s system and thinks it shows promise.
“Raytheon is indeed interested in near space and the abilities that platforms such as Sanswire’s offer to future missions,” Prautzsch said. “This is particularly true in wireless communications, C2 [command and control] sensors and meteorological systems as they relate to defense and homeland security missions. Near space offers great opportunities for space and aerospace technology convergence.”
When Prautzsch refers to “near space” he is referring to altitudes of between 19,800 and 99,000 meters — an area beyond regulatory flight control, much as are orbital altitudes. “Right now it’s a dead zone as far as utilization, but believe me, people are looking at it.”
The Sanswire stratellite is designed ultimately to remain over a given zone for up to 18 months without descending. Sanswire officials, presenting their technology March 9 during the SMi Milspace conference in Brussels, said a single stratellite could blanket a near 326,000-square-kilometer area with telecommunications.
Company officials also demonstrated the use of sensors to monitor illegal immigration and provide battle-zone coverage.
Jones said exporting a Sanswire airship would be covered under U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations both because of the wireless technologies it employs and because it is classified as an unmanned aerial vehicle. He said Sanswire would lease, not sell, the ships to non-U.S. users.
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