India conducts maiden flight-trials of stratospheric airship platform
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, May 4
India has tested what could be the future of high-altitude surveillance — a lighter-than-air, inflatable platform. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully carried out the maiden flight trials of this system, named the “stratospheric airship”, from its trial site in Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh, on Saturday.
According to the Ministry of Defence, the airship carried an instrumental payload to an altitude of approximately 17 km (17,000 metres), nearly twice the height of Mount Everest. The total flight duration was about 62 minutes.
Data from onboard sensors was received and will be used to develop high-fidelity simulation models for future high-altitude airship missions. The ministry said the pressure control and emergency deflation systems were activated during the flight to evaluate their performance. The trial team successfully recovered the system for further analysis.
Dr Samir V Kamat, Secretary of the Department of Defence R&D and Chairman of DRDO, called the prototype flight “a milestone towards the realisation of lighter-than-air, high-altitude platform systems capable of long-endurance missions in the stratosphere”.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh congratulated DRDO on the successful flight, stating that the system will “uniquely enhance India’s earth observation and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities”, placing India among a select group of nations with such indigenous technology.
The platform has been developed by DRDO’s Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE), based in Agra.
India