Should the trial be successful, the first network of aerostats would be arranged in Ekaterinburg.
Photo: Alexey Kudenko
| Other Photos |
 |
|
 |
Aerostat Gets On for a Contact
The High Altitude Platform (HAP) technology could be soon applied in Russia. In the first half of 2008, LocomoSky and Leo-Telecom intend to use airships to provide communication in the hard-to-reach areas.
Past week, LocomoSky and Leo-Telecom sealed an agreement, whereby they will put into trial operation an aerostat prototype in the first half of 2008 to deliver communication signals. The prototype is a 40m airship, which will cover the hard-to-reach area in the radius of between 160km and 226km.
An aerostat with equipment is connected with a diesel generating set by a cable. It goes up to the altitude of 4km to stay there for about 100 days. It takes just a few hours to put it into operation.
Should the trial be successful, the first network of aerostats would be arranged in Ekaterinburg. Delivering and arranging an aerostat unit of communication costs from 30 million rubles to 50 million rubles on average, said LocomoSky General Director Viktor Prokhorov.
The idea of using aerostats isn’t new actually. In our country, the project of launching captive balloons to the altitude of 500m has been developed since mid.-1990s. But because of the coverage, the altitude of 4km looks much more promising. Nevertheless, the analysts don’t think this project very advantageous, reasoning that for the hard-to-reach regions, the problem is successfully solved by satellite communication.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 04, 2006
|
|
|
