TIM FURNISS
Spectacular images of the UK attempted world-record breaking QinetiQ 1 balloon flight will be transmitted by the Qinetiq company's Zephyr solar-powered UAV.
Zephyr is planned to break the altitude record for an aircraft and could be used for a number of applications such as a communications relay.
The UAVwill be attached to the base of the balloon's capsule, crewed by Andy Elson and Colin Prescot, who will ascend from St Ives, Cornwall later this month, splashing down in the Atlantic about 12 hours later.
They are attempting to break the 113,740ft (34,400m) record set on 4 May, 1961 by Malcolm Ross and Vic Prather on the US Navy's Stratolab 5 balloon.
The balloon flight is being sponsored by QinetiQ, formerly the larger part of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, which was established as a government public-private partnership.
QinetiQ 1 will reach 132,000ft (40,200m) – the edge of space – and will be seen as a bright star in the sky, reflecting the sunlight, within 600 miles.
Reconnaissance
Wearing Russian Soyuz space suits, the two balloonists, seated in an open gondola, will be protected against temperatures of 70ºC to –25ºC and high levels of solar radiation.
They will be flying beneath a 5-tonne polyethylene helium balloon as tall as the Empire State Building and with a volume of 1.2 million m2, 400 times the size of a normal hot-air balloon.
QinetiQ 1 will carry some science instruments, including a cosmic radiation monitor that has flown on the Space Shuttle and Mir space station.
The company sees commercial applications for balloons. Recently the UK Meteorological Office (MO) said that they could be used as communications airships, "replacing costly satellites in crowded geostationary orbit within 10 years", according to Dave Underwood, head of civil aviation services at the MO.
Other applications include using the balloons as environmental monitors in the stratosphere, a rarely monitored region of the atmosphere. "It is nicknamed the ignorosphere," jokes Alan Haskell, managing director of space applications.
Lightweight
Meanwhile, the 12kg Zephyr plane will be deployed on a tether from beneath the balloon and will relay live digital still and video images during a flight.
This will demonstrate the potential application of the plane as a future operational stratospheric platform, flying free in unoccupied space, an invisible relay platform.
Wings with a span of 12m are covered with solar cells, providing electrical power to operate five propellers which will drive the vehicle at a speed of 7kt. Zephyr will demonstrate lightweight technologies for future operational stratospheric platforms.
QinetiQ believes that a vehicle could be used for communications, reconnaissance and environmental monitoring, "flying out of sight, higher than operational aircraft and slower than satellites, able to remain flying over a certain part of the Earth", said Terry Gardiner, a QinetiQ project manager.
The company is working on a proposal with a Middle East client and believes that the aircraft could be used as permanently airborne telecommunications stations.
Source: Flight Daily News
