Airship strats its stuff

By Howard Breuer
April 26, 2005
An artist's impression
of the Stratellite
airship that would
function as a relay
platform while
floating in the

An artist's impression of the Stratellite airship that would function as a relay platform while floating in the stratosphere.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a Stratellite, and its makers believe it will revolutionise the broadband and wireless industry - if it ever gets off the ground.

Wisconsin communications company Sanswire has unveiled its almost-finished prototype of a hard-framed, unmanned airship designed to fly in the stratosphere 20 kilometres above the earth, sending and receiving broadband, mobile and video phone signals to an area of about 800,000 square kilometres - roughly the size of New South Wales. High-definition television services are also planned.

A key advantage of a stratellite, its makers say, is it will enable high-speed bi-directional transmissions, allowing videoconferencing and fast uploading or file sharing - traditional satellite internet services are mostly one-way, download systems.

"We're shooting for satellite replacement at a lower cost," said Leigh Coleman, president of Sanswire parent GlobeTel Communications Corp. "We believe this will change the way you communicate."

When finished, the 75-metre, robot-piloted, solar-powered airship will resemble a double-tailed whale.

Flying above the jet stream but lower than a satellite - and at 110th the cost at $US25 million ($A32.16 million) to $US30 million - the Stratellite also would render land-based cell-phone towers obsolete, its makers say. The platform would be able to carry several thousand kilograms of payload and will hover permanently over an area.

But that altitude is largely unused and untested, and GlobeTel CEO Tim Huff acknowledged the company doesn't yet have Federal Aviation Administration approval to launch an unmanned airship.

"It could be a 90- to 120-day process for NASA and the FAA to clear us" for a test flight over Edwards Air Force base, Huff said.

"We don't have a test date, but we're hoping for mid-summer," Huff said. "But we're still years ahead of any other program doing anything like this."

Military and satellite applications have also been suggested, including border control, remote sensing for bushfires and climate control, police and security surveillance, and to hover over war zones.

The company hopes to start building and launching full-size Stratellites as soon as next year, with hundreds if not thousands of the devices eventually straddling the globe, staying aloft for months at a time.

Investors at the much-anticipated unveiling in the southern California desert said they were excited by GlobeTel's performance and the company's promise to wireless phone users.

"Every time a call drops while someone is driving through the mountains, I say, 'Oh, don't worry, once Sanswire gets up there we won't have this problem'," said investor Muriel Sigala, of California. -- REUTERS


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