ARIA commits £70m to high-altitude stratospheric aircraft work

The UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency is investing £70 million, about US$94 million, in aircraft built to stay in the stratosphere for long periods and provide communications coverage over the UK.

Eighteen projects will receive funding through the agency's Enduring Atmospheric Platforms programme over three and a half years. The work falls into three technical areas: enabling technologies, systems integration and testing, and deployment and communications architecture.

The main technical target is a week of station-keeping in the stratosphere while the aircraft supplies 300W to a communications payload. The agency wants high-altitude pseudo-satellites, or HAPS, to sit between ground-based networks and satellites as an extra layer of coverage.

The agency is deliberately funding a range of aircraft designs rather than narrowing to one concept. Programme director Rico Chandra said the research builds on UK work in high-altitude platforms and covers ideas from fixed-wing solar aircraft to unconventional concepts, including craft that stay aloft using spinning wings rather than propellers. Rotorcraft have not flown in the stratosphere before, he said, and teams funded under the programme aim to set new altitude records.