The sky is black 100,000 feet above ground, and you can
clearly see the curvature of the Earth. The air is so thin it
is incapable of supporting life. It is also incapable of
supporting sustained horizontal flight of an aircraft-until
now.
It is into that hostile environment 19 miles above ground
that a small group of engineers from NASA’s Dryden Flight
Research Center, Edwards, CA, and AeroVironment, Inc.,
Monrovia, CA, plan to fly the unique unmanned solar-powered
Helios Prototype.
The giant yet ultralight flying wing could soar into the
stratosphere on its quest as early as the second week in
August, after successfully completing an 18-hour functional
checkout flight on July 15. The flights are being conducted
from the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on the
Hawaiian island of Kauai.
Should the Helios Prototype reach its objective, it would set
a new world’s altitude record for propeller-driven aircraft,
surpassing the 80,201-foot record of its predecessor, the
solar-electric Pathfinder-Plus, set in August, 1998. It would
also exceed the highest reported altitude achieved in
sustained horizontal flight by jet-powered aircraft as well,
85,068 feet by a SR-71 aircraft in July, 1976. Only short-
duration rocket-powered aircraft have flown higher.
The Helios Prototype is one of the unique remotely operated,
uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAV) being developed for high-
altitude, long-duration earth science imaging and atmospheric
sampling missions under the Environmental Research Aircraft
and Sensor Technology (ERAST) project at Dryden.
John Del Frate, project manager for solar-powered aircraft at
Dryden, noted that setting an altitude record is only one of
several goals for this summer’s flight tests. “A 100,000-foot
altitude record would be the icing on the cake,” he said.
“Our primary interest in testing this new aircraft is for
taking sophisticated lightweight science instruments to
greater heights.”
“Another added bonus for NASA is the fact that flight at
100,000 feet would be very similar to flight in the Martian
atmosphere,” Del Frate added. “In a way, we are going to
school on these flights to learn what the aerodynamics are
like in these conditions.”
AeroVironment vice-president Robert Curtin noted that
production versions of the Helios could also serve as long-
endurance commercial telecommunications relay platforms,
orbiting over major population centers at 55,000 to 70,000
feet altitude for months at a time. Disaster recovery
agencies might one day be able to move a Helios over the
scene of a catastrophe where the normal communications
infrastructure has been destroyed.
“AeroVironment’s goal is to develop an airplane that is the
equivalent of an 11-mile-high tower in the sky,” he added.
The primary objective of Helios’ recent checkout flight was
to expand the flight envelope of the aircraft and verify
proper operation of aircraft systems at high altitudes.
Reaching an altitude of 76,271 feet was considered necessary
in order to reduce risk for the upcoming effort to achieve
sustained horizontal flight at 100,000 feet altitude.
The 247-foot-span ultralight flying wing flew six low-
altitude initial airworthiness validation flights on battery
power at NASA Dryden in the fall of 1999.
Since then, the Helios Prototype has undergone major
upgrades, including the installation of approximately 65,000
high-efficiency solar cells across the wing, which can
produce more than 35 kilowatts of electricity.
The 100,000-foot altitude flight is one of two major flight
milestones set for the craft by NASA, the other being a four-
day non-stop long-endurance demonstration flight above 50,000
feet planned for 2003.
