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A team of researchers from Research Triangle Institute successfully tested a paint-on antenna for high-altitude airships on June 21, in the Nevada desert.
"Paint-on" antennas are said to be a key enabling technology for high altitudes airships expected to be drafted by the Department of Defense and Homeland Security for persistent surveillance missions around the nation's coastal waters, land borders, urban areas and critical infrastructure.
The test flight was conducted on a SA-60 Spherical Airship designed using Sierra Nevada and TechSphere technology. The antenna transmited both voice and data in the test.
NASA Langley Research Center , RTI International, Applied EM, International Communications Group, Unitech, Sierra Nevada Corporation (Sierra Nevada), and Techsphere Systems International (Techsphere), a wholly owned subsidiary of Cyber Defense Systems, were involved in the test. Unitech supplied their Unishield magic paint for the antenna.
 The Airship flight experiment also included NASA's GPS Reflectance Experiment, to evaluate Airship applications for soil moisture remote sensing missions. The NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is developing remote sensing applications of the satellite-transmitted GPS signal, which itself can also be used to obtain a number of useful scientific measurements.
Located in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, 21st Century Airships was founded in 1988 as a research and development company for lighter-than-air crafts. The company's primary objective is to improve traditional airship technology and develop safe, modern, cost-effective airships for a wide variety of applications.
The US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) has awarded contracts for the DARPA Integrated Sensor is Structure (ISIS) program. It will develop sensors for the 500 foot long, autonomous High Altitude Airships (HAA) that stay aloft for years at a time, reports Robots.net.
In 2006, a prototype airship will be positioned over Akron, Ohio. The prototype airship will become part of the Ballistic Missile Defense System Test Bed following the successful demonstration in 2007. Sky Sentry has contracts with the NRO, Ballistic Missile Defense and other agencies.
 Lockheed received $8.8 million to develop a power system for the stratospheric airship. Northrop Grumman got $15.5 million for power systems and the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) sensor that will be bonded directly to the hull material of the airship. AESA uses many "active" transmit/receive elements. Passive electronically scanned array (PESA) antennas, by contast, are powered by a single RF source feeding numerous emitting elements. GaAs MMIC chips are the key. Microwave Journal has the latest.
High-Altitude Airships (HAAs) would hover about 13 miles (21 km) above the Earth's surface, positioned between powerful jet streams below and strong stratospheric winds above. The height of this "sweet spot" varies according to geographic location, but once there, airships should be able to hold station with modest power expenditures. NASA's Helios, an ultra-light flying wing was designed to loiter at up to 100,000 feet, but the aircraft was lost in June 2003 near the Hawaiian islands. Then there's Sanswire which hopes to provide voice, video, and broadband Internet access to all parts of the country.
Airship websites like the AIRSHIP ASSOCIATION have more.
[TNX: Roger and Aaron]
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