Lockheed wins a Pentagon contract to build a high-altitude blimp

After two years on the drawing board, an experimental, unmanned blimp designed to float in “near space” to help the U.S. military test missile warning systems is now set to take shape in a hangar in Akron, Ohio.

The United States’ Missile Defense Agency on Thursday awarded defense contractor Lockheed Martin $150 million to build a prototype of its high-altitude airship, a 400-feet long, solar-powered, and sensor-laden blimp. The aircraft will float in the outer fringes of the atmosphere, high above rough weather and the jet stream.

With a maiden flight projected for 2009, the airship is part of a U.S. military plan to test how well airships can perform as geostationary platforms for short- and long-range missile warning systems. Hovering at 65,000 feet, below satellites, but much higher than most aircraft, a reusable high-altitude aircraft could also help with communications as well as weather surveillance. The catch phrase in the Pentagon for such aircraft is “near space.”

There’s renewed interest in so-called lighter-than-air aircraft in military circles, not only as sensor platforms, but also for moving cargo, said Bradley Curran, a defense industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan. The blimps are cheaper, more responsive, and “avoid many of the hassles and waiting involved with more traditional… space and aircraft,” Mr. Curran said. (DARPA WALRUS Project details can be found here DARPA WALRUS PROJECT )

Trade Secret

Kate Dunlap, a Lockheed Martin spokesperson, said that technological advances in the material used to construct the airship’s hull make the new vessels possible. The ingredients of the composite fabrics are a Lockheed secret, Ms. Dunlap said, but they are lighter and stronger than the fabrics that covered the skeletons of earlier airships. State-of-the-art solar panels will deliver the power to the airship that will allow it to stay aloft for one month.

But not all the technology problems facing such blimps have been solved, said Fred Edworthy, vice president of Aeros Aeronautical Systems in Tarzana, California, which builds high-altitude airships for the South Korean government.

“You’ve got these 12-hour nights,” Mr. Edworthy said. “How do you store power to keep your propellers going to fight against the winds?” Fuel cell technology is not yet up to the job, he said, and lithium ion batteries add weight to the blimp.

As any blimp enthusiast can testify, lighter-than-air aircraft have been going in and out of fashion for decades. While this may be a hot time for airships, Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with Teal Group, an aerospace and defense industry analyst firm in Fairfax, Virginia, is skeptical. His doubts flow more from the source of the money behind the high-altitude airship than the airship itself.

“[The Missile Defense Agency] is a vast collecting tank for very well-funded ideas,” he said. “But no one is close to deploying anything useful.”