The aeroplatform is capable of climbing to a height of 20-40 km and moving along a given route for several months
MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. Specialists of Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TUSUR, Tomsk) have developed a new type of high-altitude balloon that can reduce the cost of scientific research in the stratosphere. This was announced on Thursday by the press service of the university.
The aeroplatform, developed by the team of the TUSUR student business incubator under the scientific supervision of the head of the laboratory of the Institute of Radio Engineering Systems of the university Fedor Zakharov, is able to climb to a height of 20-40 km and move along a given route for several months, which previous generations of platforms lack.
"Its peculiarity is in the advanced technology of changing the buoyancy of the balloon by compressing the air in one of the shells (aeroballast). This solution allows you to change the height of the device in a controlled manner without dumping ballast and venting helium <...>, thereby choosing the passing air flow. This allows the new balloon to move along a given route, unlike traditional zero-pressure stratostats, which fly where the wind carries them, without being able to change direction," the press service of the university quotes the words of the co-author of the development, a student of TUSUR Nikita Cheban.
The developers were able to increase the duration of the flight of the device from 1-2 weeks to several months due to new shell materials. Such a high-altitude aeroplatform can be used to study silvery clouds, the Earth's magnetosphere, monitoring climate change (collecting information about carbon and ozone in the atmosphere), organizing cellular communications in remote areas, and a number of other tasks.
"If we take into account that the conditions in the stratosphere are very similar to those in orbit <...>, then such a flight is similar to a satellite in near-Earth orbit. At the same time, the cost of launching a high-altitude balloon is 100, or even 1,000 times cheaper than launching a satellite into near-Earth orbit. This makes space research more accessible for research teams," Cheban also noted.
In 2022, the authors plan to launch 14 small satellites using the aeroplatform for research conducted by scientists from the Krasnodar Territory. It will also be used to test the satellite's space communication systems, which are being developed by the Research Institute of Radio Engineering Systems of TUSUR, the press service of the university noted. The authors' project is supported by a grant from the Innovation Promotion Foundation.
