Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights

[hilgenberg]

Quelle: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 8400.story

Los Angelas Times

Pentagon plans blimp to spy from new heights

The giant dirigible would use radar to closely and constantly monitor activity on the ground from 65,000 feet.

By Julian E. Barnes
March 13, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- The Pentagon said Thursday that it intends to spend $400 million to develop a giant dirigible that will float 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, providing unblinking and intricate radar surveillance of the vehicles, planes and even people below.

"It is absolutely revolutionary," Werner J.A. Dahm, chief scientist for the Air Force, said of the proposed unmanned airship -- describing it as a cross between a satellite and a spy plane.



Eye in the skyThe 450-foot-long craft would give the U.S. military a better understanding of an adversary's movements, habits and tactics, officials said. And the ability to constantly monitor small movements in a wide area -- the Afghanistan- Pakistan border, for example -- would dramatically improve military intelligence.

"It is constant surveillance, uninterrupted," Dahm said. "When you only have a short-time view -- whether it is a few hours or a few days -- that is not enough to put the picture together."

The project reflects a shift in Pentagon planning and spending priorities under Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has urged the military services to improve intelligence and surveillance operations while cutting high-tech weaponry costs.


If successful, the dirigible -- the brainchild of the Air Force and the Pentagon's research arm -- could pave the way for a fleet of spy airships, military officials said.

However, it marks the return to a form of flight that has stirred anxiety and doubt since the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. Thirty-six people were killed when that airship went up in flames in New Jersey.

The military has used less-sophisticated tethered blimps -- called aerostats -- to conduct surveillance around military bases in Iraq. But flying at 65,000 feet, the giant airship would be nearly impossible to see, beyond the range of any hand-held missile, and safe from most fighter planes.

And its range would be such that the spy craft could operate at the distant edges of any military theater, probably out of the range of surface-to-air missiles as well.

The Air Force's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance abilities have improved dramatically in the last five years with the expansion of the Predator and other drones. Although such craft can linger over an area for a long time, they do not watch constantly.

The giant airship's military value would come from its radar system. Giant antenna would allow the military to see farther and with more detail than it can now.

"Being able to observe threats [and] understand what is happening is really the game-changing piece here," Dahm said.

The dirigible will be filled with helium and powered by an innovative system that uses solar panels to recharge hydrogen fuel cells. Military officials said those underlying technologies -- plus a very lightweight hull -- were critical to making the project work.

"The things we had to do here were not trivial; they were revolutionary," said Jan Walker, a spokeswoman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's research arm.

The Air Force has signed an agreement with DARPA to develop a demonstration dirigible by 2014. The prototype will be a third as long as the planned surveillance craft -- known as ISIS, for Integrated Sensor Is the Structure, because the radar system will be built into the structure of the ship.

While the military says the craft is closer to a blimp than a zeppelin -- which has a rigid external structure -- officials usually call the project an airship. Blimps get their shape from helium gas pressure.

The Pentagon has not yet awarded a contractor to build the prototype. Earlier work was done by Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach -- as well as Baltimore and other locations -- and by Lockheed Martin in Palmdale, Calif.; Akron, Ohio; and Denver.

[hilgenberg]

AirForceTimes

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/ ... mp_032809/

ISR blimp would fly for 10 years uninterrupted

By Michael Hoffman - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 28, 2009 8:42:19 EDT

A blimp that hovers at 65,000 feet and stays aloft for a decade is what the Air Force hopes within five years will revolutionize its intelligence gathering.

Early estimates put the price at $400 million, according to the service’s chief scientist, Werner J.A. Dahm, who is overseeing the project.

The 450-foot-long airship would be a “potentially game-changing” addition to intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities because of its 10-year flight time and a radar unit so massive it wouldn’t fit into any aircraft now in the service’s fleet, Dahm said.

“It would allow us to observe remarkably fine details over very long periods,” he said. “That lets us better understand how an adversary operates, how to anticipate their actions, how to interpret their intent, and many other things that we need today, tomorrow and beyond.”

The radar would track coalition and enemy movements on land, sea and air, advancing the capabilities provided by satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the Predator and the Reaper.

UAVs maintain a presence over the battlefield by cycling in and out of orbits; the blimp, too, would have that “unblinking eye” but without the support of launching and landing aircraft that the unending orbits demand, Dahm said.

The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, the military’s research arm, has been developing the aircraft since 2004. Work will start this year on the Integrated Sensor Is the Structure, or ISIS, a scaled-down version designed to fly a year without landing.

To keep the blimp in the air 10 years, scientists and engineers have had to design a hull that can withstand the elements at 65,000 feet, including a temperature of 130 degrees below zero, and produce a power source that can regenerate energy.

“We think we have the solutions to meet those technical challenges, and ISIS will let us try to put them all together into a complete functioning system,” Dahm said.

The hull material now can withstand a low of 150 degrees below zero and retain 85 percent of its fiber strength for 22 years, according to a DARPA presentation. Fuel cells recharged by the sun, instead of batteries, will power the blimp.

Lift will come from helium; the craft would have a sustained airspeed of 60 knots and a sprint speed of 100 knots, DARPA said.

Still, Dahm cautions, more work needs to be done. For example, the researchers still need to ensure the blimp can defend itself. Flying at 65,000 feet, the aircraft won’t be vulnerable to many enemy anti-aircraft systems but will be susceptible to “missiles and other threats,” Dahm said. “We need to assess if the technologies needed to make such systems possible are ready, and we need to learn how to effectively integrate those technologies into practical systems,” he said.

Right now, blimps with cameras are tethered above bases in Iraq and Afghanistan to provide security. The blimp in development, though, won’t be like any the military has ever used, Dahm said.

“We’ve never put a radar this large into a blimp before, and we’ve never tried to keep a blimp aloft continuously for years at these altitudes,” he said. “So, while it is a blimp, what we are doing in this joint DARPA/Air Force effort really is something absolutely revolutionary.”
[/img]