A stratospheric LTA stationary platform for telecommunication and environmental protection

Even though satellite, balloons, and aircraft have served admirably as aerospace platforms for remote sensing and telecommunication, requirements for a new kind of platforms-an easily modifiable, sub-orbital platform-have been widely identified. The High-Altitude Long-Range Observational Platform is a solar power driven LTA vehicle to maintain a station-keeping position in the lower stratosphere for long duration and to carry out missions such as high-resolution, real-time remote sensing, environmental monitoring, disaster evaluation, co-ordination of relief efforts, and high-speed telecommunications relays. Alternative power sources are surface-to-air transmission of microwave energy and high-power laser beams. The authors discuss analytical designs of the platform.