BOSTON -- A
recent U.S. Defense Department exercise has helped increase awareness in the
military about the value of using high-altitude balloons operating near the
edge of space to set up emergency communications networks on short notice,
according to an Air National Guard official.
The
balloons played a significant role in the exercise, which featured a scenario
in which Air National Guard units responded
to a fictional earthquake in Hilo, Hawaii, from June 18 to 20, according to
Lt. Col. Patty Tuttle, commander of the Arizona Air National Guard's Second
Detachment.
The
exercise was part of the California Air National Guard's regular training, but
the Arizona unit, which is dedicated to operating high-altitude platforms, was
brought in to supply communications in the initial phases of the scenario, in
which the earthquake wiped out existing communications infrastructure, Tuttle
said in a July 10 interview.
Tuttle's
unit is the only military organization today that is trained and equipped to
operate the high-altitude platforms, and would be the organization the
Department of Defense turned to if that capability were needed in an
operational deployment, she said.
The
Pentagon previously had referred to these types of platforms as "near
space" vehicles, but now refers to them as "high-altitude" vehicles in an
effort to avoid defining where space begins, Tuttle said.
The Arizona
unit is currently working with a system called Combat SkySat, which is built by
Space Data Corp. of Chandler, Ariz. Jerry Quenneville, Space Data Corp. vice
president for government programs business development, said that the vehicle
operates at an altitude of roughly 65,616 feet (20,000 meters) to nearly
101,706 feet (31,000 meters). Space Data Corp. currently markets its services
commercially to relay information from oil fields.
The Air
Force awarded an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract to Space Data
Corp. in August 2006 with a total possible value of $49 million. Quenneville
said the company has booked roughly $6 million in orders so far under that
contract.
Each
vehicle costs about $10,000, though the price could be driven down over time
through larger production runs, Quenneville said. While the company leases
services to the oil industry, it sells the hardware to the Pentagon, he said.
Combat
SkySat, which features a disposable balloon and UHF communications payload,
could be used today to set up an emergency communications network in a domestic
disaster response operation, Tuttle said. If the Pentagon chose to deploy the
system as part of military operations overseas, it would likely need several
months to purchase a stockpile of platforms to maintain operations over an
extended period, she said.
Following
the June exercise, members of the California and Hawaii guard units that
participated expressed interest in having their own high-altitude platforms,
Tuttle said.
A military
unit would need two or three troops to launch the balloons, and three more to
operate and maintain the high-altitude vehicles, Tuttle said. If other military
units are going to begin using the vehicles, they will need to find the
additional manpower to handle the task because it requires dedicated personnel,
she said.
Combat
SkySat is capable of connecting users with handheld communications devices
spread out over an area with a radius of about 298 miles (480 kilometers),
Tuttle said. The system could be useful for troops operating in an urban
setting or mountainous terrain who would not normally be able to access
line-of-sight communications signals, she said.
The system
could be particularly useful to special operations personnel because it uses a
low power signal that does not require troops to carry a lot of heavy
batteries, Tuttle said. The focus of the Combat SkySat experimentation to date
has been on communications missions, but the balloon also could be used as a
platform for surveillance payloads, she added.
While
Combat SkySat is the only high-altitude balloon ready for disaster response
operations inside the United States today, and overseas deployments within a
matter of months, other concepts on the horizon include a vehicle built by Near
Space Corp. of Tillamook, Oregon, that offers users the ability to safely
return payloads to troops on the ground. That capability could be particularly
attractive to the military if it opts to deploy classified payloads on
high-altitude platforms, as those payloads cannot be abandoned, Tuttle said.
Quenneville
said Space Data Corp. has sold training versions of Combat SkySat to the Air
Force that feature beacons to assist with recovery, but said that the
operational versions that it has built so far for the military have not been
designed to be recovered.
Near Space
Corp., which was formerly known as GSSL Inc., has been focused to date on
working with civil agencies like NASA, where it developed its technology while
working on various potential
Mars exploration vehicles, according to Tim Lachenmeier, Near Space Corp.
president.
Lachenmeier
said in a July 9 interview that the company received an Air Force contract that
ran from April 2005 through March 2006 worth several million dollars that
covered a feasibility study and a demonstration of the launch of its vehicle,
operation of a communications payload, and the return of the payload at the
Yakima Training Center, a U.S. Army facility in Yakima, Washington.
Near Space
Corp. received a follow-on contract worth around $1 million from the Air Force
in June that runs through the end of 2007 to improve the robustness and
simplify the operations of the vehicle, he said.
The company
could have a Near Space Shuttle System geared towards the needs of military
users within a year to 18 months, Lachenmeier said. Such tactical users require
the ability to launch in conditions with significant wind. Near Space could
supply that capability if the company receives a follow-on contract from the
Defense Department with a value of $10 million or less, he said.
If it is
tapped to deliver operational vehicles to the military, Near Space likely would
partner with a company that would serve as an integrator for the vehicle's
payload and connect the system with the Pentagon's information networks,
Lachenmeier said. Near Space currently is talking with General Dynamics
Advanced Information Systems about serving in that role, he said.
In addition
to the return capability, the Near Space vehicle could carry much more capable
payloads than Combat SkySat. Tuttle said Combat SkySat carries payloads
weighing less than 3 kilograms, and Lachenmeier said his company's vehicle
could be able to carry more than 45 kilograms.
Lachenmeier
said the Near Space Shuttle System could play an important role in supplying
communications to bandwidth-consuming unmanned
aerial vehicles that the Pentagon is deploying in increasing numbers.
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