Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper said Dec. 14 he plans to “solidify” plans next week with his four-star commander of Space Command for the use of an up-until-now neglected area of operations called “near space.”

While a few companies on the commercial side right now are developing technology for the high-altitude airship market, the industry could see a boost in federal funding in the near term, as the Army’s chief information officer said the military needs to increase its investment in high altitude airships, a platform that provides potentially greater capabilities than unmanned aerial vehicles, according to the Army’s chief information officer.

Between 65,000 feet where aircraft generally operate and about 300 kilometers above Earth where satellites orbit, there is potential to boost the Pentagon’s intelligence collection capabilities, Jumper said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast. Top Air Force leaders have recently been discussing this “no-man’s land” as a ripe area for stationing “lighter-than-air” vehicles, or blimps, laden with sensors.

High altitude airships have received increasing attention and funding in recent years, but still not enough money is being put into the technology, Lt. Gen. Steven Boutelle, chief information officer for the U.S. Army, said. “A lot of money is being pushed into it, but it is too slow,” Boutelle told an audience Dec. 15 at a Shephard’s conference on unmanned aerial vehicles held in Arlington, Va.

While praising the capabilities that UAVs have brought to the military, particularly in Iraq, high altitude airships, which could stay aloft for up to six months, have even greater potential, according to Boutelle. But, he argued, “We are putting very little dollars into it.”

The capability offered by such airships “threaten a lot of people,” Boutelle said, particularly the space community, which relies on satellites. Airships, which dwell around 75,000 feet, offer capabilities that fall between lower-dwelling UAVs and on-orbit satellites.

Cheaper Than Satellites

Integrating data collected from such vehicles with data collected by small constellations of satellites in medium-Earth orbit (low-Earth orbit requires nearly 50 to achieve persistence) could reduce the amount of costly space systems that need to be launched, Jumper said.

Jumper added these vehicles could alleviate some of the stress and cost associated with fielding spaceborne systems, a move to achieve what leaders call “persistence” over the battlespace. This term describes a sensor bubble–using sensors on the ground, air, sea and in space–that would allow commanders to stare at a region uninterrupted. “If you go there and say ‘what could we do there?’ Persistence is what we could do there,” Jumper said.

So-called “near space” has been a neglected medium due to a lack of advocacy, he added. “From zero to 65,000 feet, guys like me fly things because there are enough air molecules to support combustion. Between 65,000 feet and 300 kilometers there are not enough air molecules to support combustion and it is too low to orbit anything. So, the space guys are not interested and the air guys are not interested.” Jumper added that the officials at Air Force Space Command would lead efforts to explore how to exploit near space.

High altitude airship efforts have proliferated over the past several years, but are primarily developmental and small-scale programs. The Missile Defense Agency and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) are sponsoring a demonstration prototype scheduled to fly in 2006. The prototype airship will stay aloft for a month carrying a 4,000- pound payload.

Earlier this year, the Army awarded Lockheed Martin a $1.6 million systems integration contract to provide the first of two 56,000-cubic-foot tethered aerostat surveillance systems for Iraq. The helium filled, lighter-than-air aerostat is 110 feet long, with a 36-foot diameter.

More recently, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory announced a demonstration project to build the High Altitude Reconnais-sance Vehicle (HARVe, pronounced “Harvey”) and hopes to conduct a demonstration of the air vehicle within eight months.

On the commercial side, GlobeTel Communications Corp., through its wholly-owned subsidiary Sanswire Networks LLC, recently said it is on target for a first quarter 2005 launch of its stratellite, the name it has given its high-altitude airship. The company said it has elected to construct the prototype of the ship, named Sanswire One, in sections made up of several subassemblies. The construction of the subassemblies began in November and will continue throughout the remainder of the year, the company said.

–Amy Butler, Sharon Weinberger