DARPA is raising the rent on innovation with a CONOPS for long-endurance UAV – one that can stay airborne for five years:
The idea is for a small, lightweight plane that would likely carry surveillance or communications equipment and circle at 60,000 to 90,000 feet over a given point for extended periods of time. It would have to be more flexible than a satellite, able to change course and move around the globe. But it would need to be just as hardy, with minimal need for refueling or repairs once it’s in flight. And it needs to be made of lightweight materials that won’t require much power to move, but also won’t break down over time.
It is, to put it mildly, a challenge, said Tom Ehrhard, an expert on unmanned aerial vehicles with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
“It is a very speculative project,” he said. “It’s classically DARPA. It’s very, very hard.”
Well. That should get the old creative juices flowing at Skunkworks.
Five years? What requirement could possible drive that?
My guess, off the top of my head is that it is a way to get the capabilities of a satellite when you don’t have one.
Something like this would be handy if somebody was making it impossible to keep something in space. I think recent events have made it pretty clear that it is difficult to get stuff up and not nearly difficult enough to kill what is up there.
I can think of a couple right off the bat.
1. You’re going to need to stay in your caves for a very long time, yes we’re watching and waiting.
2. Iran, be very, very careful about what you do at Natanz, we’re watching 24/7/365/5.
From my uneducated viewpoint I’d agree with JR Peck — it’s basically a satellite without all that pesky rocket launch stuff. Also with that annoying requirement to keep orbiting around the world, thus being out of view of your target for long periods of time.
But it seems like these would be easier to shoot down than a satellite. 60,000 feet isn’t hard for a modern airforce to reach. It can’t be that hard to hit one of these with a missile from that altitude.
It’s probably for communications relay – WiFi in the sky. The advantage being that it isn’t a $2 billion investment, like a satellite. You can move it, too.
I have no doubt that some clever soul will come up with a simple elegant solution that meets all the DARPA requirements and that when it is militarized by Big Contractor the DoD will add so many extraneous requirements that the poor thing won’t be able to lift off the ground for the next 20 years. On the other hand, I love X prizes!
Lex / JR Peck / Allen / Brian R / Mike M. / Curtis / anyoneelsewaitinginthewings,
You’re all correct here. The impetus is to provide a payload capability that is less expensive to field and far more recoverable than a satellite. Although boosters are pretty reliable these days, they still have a loss rate that is unacceptable when it comes to some of the more expensive and sensitive equipment.
Or so I am told by someone smarter about these things than me.
My man tells me that the normal versus DARPA thinking process goes about like this:
(DARPA sample process in parenthesees, or however that is spelled)
1. Think of project.
(How’s a burrito sound?)
2. Approve project idea.
(Cool. 7-11?)
3. Attach ridiculous metric for success
(Dude, how about 7-11 on the FRICKIN’ MOON! MOON! LET’S BUILD A 7-11 ON THE MOON!)
4. Write proposal.
(MOON!!111ELEVEN!!!ONEONEONE)
5. Execute project.
(You driving or am I? Okay, I drive but you’re spotting me for the burrito. Wait, what? Moon? Dude, the moon is like really far away and we don’t have funding for like space suits and stuff.)
6. Declare success.
(We have burrito. It is good. We win.)
7. Write point paper.
(We have determined that rehashing the Apollo program will be required to bring this project to a full conclusion. But we have also ascertained that an adequate burrito may be fetched from 7-11 utilizing extant vehicle technology and commercial, off-the-shelf systems. Specifically, a pre-existing 7-11 near 53rd and El Cajon Blvd. in San Diego, California.)
Wasn’t there a NASA research vehicle a few years ago quite similar to this? Long, high aspect wing, multiple props, possibly solar powered?
Drew C,
It’s kind of venture capital with taxpayers money. You only get 1 in 10 but that 1 can often be pretty substantial. The other 9, “what were you thinking?”
Chris,
You might be thinking of the Helios.
Mmmm. Burrito.
Lex, LMAO. But, you must admit CL-20 is kind of cool, OK it needs some work.
As a guy whose thesis was bought and paid for by DARPA, I have to say I like where there heads are. Science and engineering both have expanding perimeters, and DARPA pushes them. Now, they always say they are going to blow them way out, but really they are working incrementally. (Except for that one project where they successfully hypnotized that herd of cattle to disrupt enemy troop movement. That really WAS revolutionary.)
5 year endurance? Once they get past the 6 month mark, I think they’ll get it.
Actually, this isn’t that difficult a problem to define. Five years on station? No sweat — we can do that with solar as the energy source. Just gotta make it light. Angels 60? No sweat again — solar loves those altitudes and I’m so light I’m a butterfly in the wind.
Oh, want to go against the headwinds? Yeah, slight problem with that boss — no mo power.
It basically boils down to physics regarding energy. If you put a sattelite into orbit you get loads of altitude (potential energy) but you spent the better part of a Shuttle and two boosters to get it there. That geosynch orbit came from expending energy, and once you’ve spent it you can only trade it for another of equal or lesser value, like bleeding off speed to stay on-station or adding energy to get into a higher orbit.
We can make a solar-powered recon bird. The RC folks have battery and solar-powered planes in the air now. The question is can you make it carry payload, which adds weight, and can you make it have enough power to move upwind?
I speculate the answer is no, they cannot. Solar isn’t particularly dense energy. Over a large area it does some truly awe-inspiring things like warm the Earth on a daily basis and dry our clothes on the line, as well as cause our winds and do that whole El Nino/El Nina thing, but 200 square foot of solar panel is to solar output as zip is divided by squat. Ya got zero.
So the next step is the hybrid model. Solar for cruise on-station, some type of other power to move about against the wind.
I don’t pretend to know the winds at 60K feet, but the hybrid model might be doable. Loiter on solar, added thrust from on-board fuel to get into position. And if this thing is cheap enough I can just launch another upwind to take over and let the current cost with the winds around the world to land and refuel.
Kind of like turning turbojets into ramjets to make a Mach 3+ recon bird, all it takes is a good problem definition and then the constraints can be overcome. The SR-71 couldn’t hit Mach 3 on turbojets, can’t take off or land with ramjets, but between the two it was able to do the mission.
– Max
Just don’t make it a nuke, like the AF tried to do with their b0mbers.
5 years. Cool
And truly revolutionary. And, what’s more, if it can stay up there for 5 years, that really puts a damper on maintenance costs.
Pity the poor Air Force jock who has to remotely fly the same racetrack for five years.
They could always hire a few ex-NASCAR drivers or Navy helo pilots John. The NASCAR guys for when the racetrack goes counter-clockwise ad the helo pilots for when it is clockwise.
A hell of an interesting concept. With the advances of technology these days, in micro-miniaturization and the resulting power savings inherent in such technology and the advent of stealthy-ness in all things aviation related as of late I don’t think survivability will be an issue.
Power, however, will be an issue that possibly could be addressed with laser or microwave input, theoretically.
As for the buritto /Nascar-Helo comments. LOL!