A High-Altitude, Station-Keeping Astronomical Platform
arXiv:astro-ph/0606383 · doi:10.1117/12.673615
Abstract
Several commercial telecommunication ventures together with a well funded US military program make it a likely possibility that an autonomous, high-altitude, light-than-air (LTA) vehicle which could maneuver and station-keep for weeks to many months will be a reality in a few years. Here I outline how this technology could be used to develop a high-altitude astronomical observing platform which could return high-resolution optical data rivaling those from space-based platforms but at a fraction of the cost.
11 pages, 10 figures. To appear in Proc. SPIE 6267, "Ground-based and Airborne Telescopes", 2006 May 24-31, Orlando, Florida USA (6267-15)