An experimental UAS with a wingspan almost the size of a Boeing 747 took to the skies over the Mojave Desert last week in a test flight from Edwards Air Force Base, reports the LA Times. On Thursday, the Global Observer performed its first test demonstrating its ability to use liquid hydrogen as fuel. It circled above Edwards at about 3,000 feet above ground level in a four-hour test, according to AeroVironment executives.
“This is a paradigm shift from capabilities that have come before,” said AeroVironment Chairman and Chief Executive Timothy E. Conver. “It’s so radically different that it’s hard for people to wrap their minds around it.”
The massive Global Observer built by AeroVironment Inc. of Monrovia is capable of flying for days at a stratosphere-skimming 65,000 feet, out of range of most anti-aircraft missiles. The plane is built to survey 280,000 square miles — an area larger than Afghanistan — at a single glance. The Global Observer is designed to fly up to a week at a time, and company officials say it may be ready to go into service by year’s end.
AeroVironment was founded in 1971 and has built several lightweight aircraft over the years. It is now the largest provider to the U.S. military of small, hand-launched drones that soldiers use to see over hills or around other obstructions.
About Global Observer
With 20 years of experience developing stratospheric, long-endurance unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), AV is developing Global Observer to operate as a “stratospheric geosynchronous satellite system” with regional coverage and minimal signal delay. Two Global Observer aircraft, each flying for up to a week at a time, will alternate coverage over any area on the earth, providing a seamless, persistent platform for high value missions such as communications relay, remote sensing, long-term surveillance and border patrol. Offering greater flexibility than a satellite and significantly longer duration than conventional manned and unmanned aircraft, Global Observer is designed to provide critical new capabilities in a reliable and more affordable manner, all while consuming no fossil fuels and emitting no carbon emissions.
In addition to flying above weather and above other conventional airplanes, operation at 55,000 to 65,000 altitude enables sensor payloads on the aircraft to view a significantly larger area on the surface of the earth than conventional, lower flying aircraft. Equipped with payloads that are readily available today, a two Global Observer system would provide persistent satellite-like coverage over any location on the globe at a fraction of the cost of satellites.
AV received the contract for developing and demonstrating Global Observer as a JCTD programme in September 2007. Six U.S. government agencies have provided more than $140 million in funding for the programme.