On Apr 28, 5:03*am, "Alan Erskine" wrote:
"Bluuuue Rajah" Bluuuuue@Rajah. wrote in message

. 33.102...



Who thought it would get this far?

You mean on to sci.SPACE.history?

Well, arguably. How high would it have to float around to get the
claimed line-of-sight area of regard (a circle of 600 km radius)?

Sounds like it might be one of the emergent class of vehicles (of
various technologies) sometimes called "atmospheric satellites," able
to persist in the awkward (and wide) range of altitudes where the air
is too thin for large/manned aircraft and too soupy for stable
orbits. A more obviously space relevant use of such things might be
flying on Mars, where IIRC the surface pressure is comparable to Earth
at maybe 100.000 feet and the oxygen content wouldn't nearly support
air breathing engines.

The specs strike me as being audacious in many aspects -- not just the
electronics and the power source, but the ten-year untended life. Of
course, that too would be relevant to unmanned planetary
exploration...