lighter-than-air vehicles - Defense Innovation Marketplace

and use of ballasts. 57 The balloon is designed to carrypayloads up to 100,000 ft. 67 The PRV (Figure 61) has astandard payload bay made of non-conductive and RFtransparent materials that allow a variety of payload systemsweighing up to 22 lbs. to be semi-autonomously returned toa pre-designated location. The flight termination, flightcontrol, avionics suite, and ballasts systems are allintegrated into the PRV shuttle. 57StarLightFigure 61: HASS PRV 67The StarLight system (Figure 62) is based on the same HASS concept of combining a balloonwith a PRV. StarLight differs in that it is intended to stay on station for longer durations (up to 3or 4 months) and operate as a high-altitude airship, while HASS remains in the air for only 24hours and is focused on development and application of the PRV. StarLight is developed byGlobal Near Space Services (GNSS) and Byer Aerospace.GNSS received funding from the Navy’s Naval AirWarfare Center under the Long Endurance, AlternativeEnergy Stratospheric Airship Program to design andengineer a 40% sub-scale version of the system, but thecontract completed in October 2011 without a completetechnology demonstrator. The envelope only made it topreliminary design review. A 40% sub-scale demonstratorof the Stratospheric Return Vehicle (SRV) was half68, 69complete. The effort is currently unfunded.The StarLight objective was to develop a system with aflight ceiling of 85,000 ft., with an operational payload ofup to 500 lbs. The altitudes that can be achieved varydepending on the size of the payload. For example, thesystem is designed to carry up to 4,000 lbs. when thealtitude is lowered to 65,000 ft. The initial goal of thesubscale demonstrator under development for NAVAIRwas to reach 65,000 ft. with a small payload. 68The StarLight system has a unique two-stage patenteddesign. The airship is at first a flaccid balloon when it takesoff. Then, once at a proper altitude, it becomes an airshipFigure 62: Two-stage StarLight System 69with a hanging SRV(Figure 63) hanging underneath the envelope. The SRVprovides flight control for the balloon to operate as anairship, in addition to operating as a payload recoveryvehicle. The balloon system does not require a hangar andcan launch out of an ISO container or from a ship, whichincreases its flexibility. The envelope is disposable andreplaced every three months. 58Figure 63: StarLight StratosphericRecovery Vehicle 69A-4