The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) in Bengaluru has successfully completed the first test of a solar-powered “pseudo satellite” in the Challakere testing range in Chitradurga district of Karnataka.
Key points
- It is a new age unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can significantly increase India’s surveillance and monitoring capabilities in the border areas.
- The high-altitude pseudo satellite vehicle (HAPS), can fly at altitudes of 18-20 km from the ground, almost double the heights attained by commercial airplanes.
- It has the ability to generate solar power, hence it can remain in air for months, even years, offering it advantages of a satellite.
- Since, it does not require a rocket to get into space, the cost of operating HAPS is several times lower than that of a satellite that is usually placed at least 200 km from the earth.
- HAPS is a still-developing technology, and the recent successful test flight puts India among a very small group of countries currently experimenting with this technology.
- NASA has been using solar-powered engines for its Pathfinder series of aircraft for a long time.
- China, South Korea, and the UK are some of the other countries where this development is taking place.
- The need for development of high-endurance, high-altitude flying instruments arose from the desire to have continuous surveillance of border areas to detect changes or movements, particularly in the wake of the Doklam standoff in 2017.
- Battery-powered UAVs can remain in air for a limited period of time and can scan relatively smaller areas.
- Satellites placed in low-earth orbits and meant to observe the Earth usually move in their orbits and are not watching constantly.
