populous areas and hazards to payload recovery, reach desirable targets, steer
around no-fly zones, and select convenient landing sites. If a balloon deviates significantly from the desired flight path it normally has to be terminated, often
before it has achieved its mission objectives. With a TCS, fewer flights will be
terminated early. Furthermore, it will be easier to obtain permission to launch a
balloon if the planned flight path can be pursued in a wider range of conditions.
No longer will balloons be at the mercy of the winds!
In 2002, the company developed an innovative, new trajectory and performance
tool for Earth and planetary balloons and lighter-than-air (LTA) systems, named
“Navajo”. The innovations of this novel software tool are integrated vertical and
horizontal trajectory modeling, application to Earth and planetary balloons and
LTA systems, a graphical user interface, and a computer-platform-independent
software package.
Additional innovations are:
• The decoupling of environment and balloon trajectory models to allow a
specific balloon design to be flown in any number of environments with different levels of fidelity.
• The integration of safety analysis of Earth balloon flights for in-flight and
pre-flight safety calculations.
• Improved fidelity of thermal models.
• An extensible application architecture to allow different balloon designs
and new environments.
Navajo is a new, advanced, and modern simulation and analysis tool to facilitate
the development of new balloon and LTA technologies for Earth and planetary
applications.
5.10.2 StratoSail Balloon Guidance System (BGS) Technology
A key technology for stratospheric balloon applications is flight path guidance.
Without path guidance, computer simulations and operational experience show
that long duration balloons can drift to virtually any region. Furthermore, they
tend to collect in regions of high vorticity, where they remain trapped. Modern
stratospheric balloons can adjust their altitude in order to seek favorable winds,
but only by significant expenditures of resources and consumables, such as by
dropping ballast, compressing air, and heating or releasing buoyant gases. Such
expenditures shorten the flights to only a few days when operating in day/night
conditions. And even with this “yo-yoing” up and down, a balloon can only go
where the winds in a narrow range of altitudes can take it. Guided stratospheric
balloons will therefore need modest guidance systems that allow them to move
relative to the wind at speeds of 1-5 m/s (3-16 ft/s).
5.10 Global Aerospace 115
around no-fly zones, and select convenient landing sites. If a balloon deviates significantly from the desired flight path it normally has to be terminated, often
before it has achieved its mission objectives. With a TCS, fewer flights will be
terminated early. Furthermore, it will be easier to obtain permission to launch a
balloon if the planned flight path can be pursued in a wider range of conditions.
No longer will balloons be at the mercy of the winds!
In 2002, the company developed an innovative, new trajectory and performance
tool for Earth and planetary balloons and lighter-than-air (LTA) systems, named
“Navajo”. The innovations of this novel software tool are integrated vertical and
horizontal trajectory modeling, application to Earth and planetary balloons and
LTA systems, a graphical user interface, and a computer-platform-independent
software package.
Additional innovations are:
• The decoupling of environment and balloon trajectory models to allow a
specific balloon design to be flown in any number of environments with different levels of fidelity.
• The integration of safety analysis of Earth balloon flights for in-flight and
pre-flight safety calculations.
• Improved fidelity of thermal models.
• An extensible application architecture to allow different balloon designs
and new environments.
Navajo is a new, advanced, and modern simulation and analysis tool to facilitate
the development of new balloon and LTA technologies for Earth and planetary
applications.
5.10.2 StratoSail Balloon Guidance System (BGS) Technology
A key technology for stratospheric balloon applications is flight path guidance.
Without path guidance, computer simulations and operational experience show
that long duration balloons can drift to virtually any region. Furthermore, they
tend to collect in regions of high vorticity, where they remain trapped. Modern
stratospheric balloons can adjust their altitude in order to seek favorable winds,
but only by significant expenditures of resources and consumables, such as by
dropping ballast, compressing air, and heating or releasing buoyant gases. Such
expenditures shorten the flights to only a few days when operating in day/night
conditions. And even with this “yo-yoing” up and down, a balloon can only go
where the winds in a narrow range of altitudes can take it. Guided stratospheric
balloons will therefore need modest guidance systems that allow them to move
relative to the wind at speeds of 1-5 m/s (3-16 ft/s).
5.10 Global Aerospace 115