Spherical Airship Development Lifts Off
While it may look like a balloon, the spherical AeroSphere airship features an outer Kevlar-like shell that mounts lightweight, swiveling propellers for propulsion and control.
Rick DeMeis
Design News
April 29, 2004
They won't be UFOs. And the strange objects appearing over Columbus, GA later this summer won't be top secret military aircraft. They will be the latest models of the AeroSphere-a spherical airship superficially akin to a powered balloon-built by Techsphere Systems International,
www.techspheresystems.com. The company is hoping to develop the technology into unmanned vehicles serving as sensor platforms and communications relays for both civilian and military uses.
The R&D firm 21st Century Airships
www.21stcenturyairships.com designed the craft. Techsphere builds the vehicles and has contracted the Georgia Tech Research Institute to provide engineering integration expertise for automation of the airships. Techsphere will also furnish AeroSpheres to the U.S. Army Soldier Battle Lab at Ft. Benning, GA for testing.
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The initial, "small' diameter versions, about 60 ft across, will fly best from 10-15 thousand feet altitude, carrying a 1,000-lb payload for up to 72 hours. Next out the door this summer will be 90-ft models to carry a similar payload to between 25-30 thousand feet. The largest airship envisioned thus far, according to Techsphere President Mike Lawson, is a 300-ft diameter behemoth slated to roll out next year and targeted at 30-60 day missions carrying 4,000 lbs to 60-70 thousand feet.
Power and control
Depending on the size, three to five pivoting propellers, roughly around the equator of the sphere, provide horizontal and vertical propulsion as well as attitude control. Lawson also points out that unlike cigar-shaped airships, such as blimps that use airfoils, which must have air moving over them to exert control forces, the peripheral propellers provide three-axis control moments and forces even when the craft is motionless in the air. This characteristic also allows for a controlled, vertical landing with minimal ground crew. And because a sphere has the lowest surface area per unit internal volume, the AeroSphere as a lower leakage rate of buoyant helium gas through its surface.
Initial AeroSpheres use turbodiesel driven generators to provide electric power to the propeller motors. Eventually fuel cells in concert with solar cells on the outside of the sphere or possibly hydrogen-based generators will be used to furnish electric power for long duration missions.
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