lighter-than-air vehicles - Defense Innovation Marketplace

HiSentinelTable 24: HiSentinel Program OverviewVehicle Class: Conventional AirshipFigure 38: HiSentinel in a Football Stadium 40PM/POC: Mr. Rick Judy, Army SMDCMission Set: High-Altitude ISR Program Start: 1996Organization(s): U.S. Army SMDC Technology Readiness Level (TRL): 6Primary Contractor(s): SwRI and AerostarInternationalCurrent Status: UnfundedThe HiSentinel program is one of two HAAprograms conducted by the U.S. ArmySMDC. HiSentinel is a spiral developmentproject to design a family of high-altitude,long-endurance airships. There have beentwo generations of autonomous, highaltitudeairships developed under this effortdating back to 1996. Three first-generationairships called SOUNDER were built andtested by the contracting team of SouthwestResearch Institute (SwRI) and AerostarInternational. The second generation wasdesignated HiSentinel. The first twoiterations of this most recent generationwere the HiSentinel 20 and 50. HiSentinel80 (the latest model) is the third and finalairship of this generation, see Table 26. 39The goal of the HiSentinel program is tocreate low-cost and expendable airships thatcan provide long-duration tactical platformsfor military and homeland securityapplication, including surveillance,communications and sensor payloads. TheHiSentinel platform launches flaccidly like aballoon, but as the helium expands, it takeson the shape of the airship at altitude (seeFigure 40 and Figure 41). It can be launchedtactically and is designed to be a single-use,long-endurance platform. 40Each model in the HiSentinel seriesincreases in size, mass, and payload mass(20-, 50-, and 80 lbs. respectively) butdecreases in achievable altitude. TheHiSentinel 20 reached over 74,000 ft. MSLduring a test flight in 2005, while theHiSentinel 80 ascended to only 60,000 ft.during its flight in 2010. The payloadcontents have changed over the modeliterations as well, but they maintain anoptical/camera system and radio link as theprimary components.45