20Jan

Tûranor PlanetSolar: World’s Largest Solar Ship About to Complete Trip Around the Globe

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Tûranor PlanetSolar World’s Largest Solar Ship About to Complete Trip Around the Globe

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The epic voyage of the Tûranor PlanetSolar – the world’s largest solar-powered boat – will soon come to a close as the ship closes in on its final stretch. The Swiss vessel is a full-bore high-tech solar harvesting machine whose deck is covered in 537 square meters of photovoltaic panels. The array produced enough energy for the boat to navigate the entire circumference of the Earth without any other means of energy. The Tûranor PlanetSolar is currently set to depart Abu Dhabi en route to their final port in Morocco – the same place the expedition launched on September 27th, 2010. The journey has come full circle in more than one respect, as it was not too long ago the only way to navigate the earth was by harnessing renewable energy with sails.

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24Dec

Eco friendly airships: The green future of transportation

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Eco friendly airships The green future of transportation

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The current scenario

Transportation technologies have got a new form over all these years and have made traveling comfortable and convenient. There are a variety of transportation modes that help us travel all around the globe in no time. But, the saddest part being that the world is still ruled by gas-guzzling beasts that are threat to the environment. Efforts are being made to give the world environmentally-friendly vehicles that will be effective, energy efficient as well as clean. Public transportation systems, like buses, trains, airplanes, etc. are also getting an eco friendly streak as they run using solar energy and electricity. Such vehicles not only save precious resources but are also superior to gasoline driven vehicles as they are harmless for the surroundings.

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4Nov

New record claimed for highest airship flight

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New record claimed for highest airship flight

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On October 22nd, just a day after the first manned flight of an electric multicopter took place in Germany, California’s JP Aerospace achieved an aeronautical feat of its own – it broke the record for the world’s highest airship flight. Remotely controlled from the ground, the all-volunteer group’s Tandem twin-balloon airship reportedly ascended to an altitude of 95,085 feet (28,982 meters). That’s almost four miles (6.4 km) higher than any airship has gone before.

JP Aerospace’s Tandem class of airships are fairly spartan, consisting of two balloons mounted at either end of a central keel frame, and two six foot (1.8 meter) -long propellers, each driven by a separate electric motor – those propellers are specifically designed to work in the thin air present at high altitudes.

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28Oct

What’s Next: Solar powered airships

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What’s Next Solar powered airships

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As we know it

One of the most respected names in the field of Aeronautics is Lockheed Martin. The firm has also ventured in areas of information, electronics, and the space systems. A new airship, which has been given the name HALE, has been recently manufactured by the firm. HALE D is the short for high altitude long endurance demonstrator. The big robot airship can easily operate at an altitude of 60,000 feet and has a big robot airship design. A series of photovoltaic cells are contained in the airship.

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25Oct

Solar Ship: The hybrid airship with a low-carbon twist

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Solar Ship The hybrid airship with a low-carbon twist

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In recent times there’s been a resurgence of interest in airships for military and commercial uses as evidenced by Lockheed Martin’s High Altitude Long Endurance-Demonstrator (HALE-D) and Hybrid Air Vehicles heavy-lift variant of Northrop Grumman’s Long-Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle (LEMV). Like HAV’s design, this concept from Canadian company Solar Ship is a hybrid airship that relies on aerodynamics to help provide lift, and like the HALE-D, it would have its top surface area covered in solar cells to provide energy and minimize its carbon footprint. (more…)

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8Sep

The airship finally takes off – Hybrid Air Vehicles has first civil customer

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The famous and well documented Hindenburg disaster of 1937, when the hydrogen-filled airship burst into flames whilst attempting to tether to its moorings in New Jersey, killed off the ‘lighter-than-air’ aircraft industry, as well as 35 unfortunate souls. Since the 1970’s however, a determined band of, mostly British, aviation engineers has been battling to design and build a commercially viable ‘air vehicle’. Many false starts, experimental craft and research projects followed (funded mostly by the U.S. military) but viability remained elusive, until now.

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17Aug

Bloon balloon Eco Friendly Near-Space Travel With a Helium Filled Balloon

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Bloon balloon Eco Friendly Near-Space Travel With a Helium Filled Balloon

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Privatized space travel is all the rage right now, and with at least one commercial space port coming online soon, there is likely to be a rush of well-to-doers looking to be launched into space. But if airline travel has a big footprint, space travel has an even greater footprint. To solve that conundrum, Barcelona-based Zero2Infinity has proposed a far more environmentally sound way to get to space – via helium balloon. The Bloon Balloon is a specially crafted pod that is lifted into near space without any propellants, noise or emissions. So far the company has successfully tested scaled prototypes to altitudes up to 33km, and they expects to perform their first human test flight sometime in 2012.

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12Aug

10 eco friendly airships of the future

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10 eco friendly airships of the future

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Airships have received a new lease of life with the growing consciousness of environment issues. The history of airships is marred by the disastrous end to the Hindenberg zeppelin in 1937 which resulted in a lull in the research into airships as a viable transportation mode. However, in the last few decades, research and development and funding have all come together to raise the eco-friendly airship out of obscurity and to elevate it from advertising blimps to feasible and effective transportation solutions. They are already being used in various ways such as heavy lifting, research and exploration, and unmanned surveillance.

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