Runter kommen sie (n)immer! Solarbetriebene Stratosphärenplattformen

Kurzfassung

At the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the vision of high-altitude platforms has been investigated ever since it was introduced to the aviation community in the 1980s. With the increasing efficiency of both battery and solar cells, this vision is on the verge of solid practical implementations, which would enable use cases in the fields of communication, observation, and remote sensing in various industries all around the world. For long-endurance missions, spanning over multiple days or even weeks, high-altitude platforms must have a well-balanced energy management to charge the batteries during the days and use the stored energy to stay in position during the nights. The Solar-HALE team of the DLR Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems is designing and building a first demonstrator named -Carbon Swift- for the first overall system evaluation and first flight in summer 2017.