Lightweight Army (LWA) High Altitude Airship (1000-743)

Triton Systems and Lockheed Martin ADP (Skunk Works) propose to leverage their existing work on Missile Defense Agency's HAA and DARPA's ISIS programs to develop a LightWeight Army (LWA) lighter-than-air airship that will provide the warfighter with a 50 to 100 pound payload of persistent ISR capability. The LWA will be designed to fly at 60,000 feet altitude, over military targets; it will have 48-hour minimum on-station management; and, it will have the capability of being launched, retrieved, repaired, and re-launched in the field. In the Phase I, Triton's team will design the airship's size, volume, and hull material, as well as we will identify subsystems, develop ConOps concepts - how we will launch, manage flight, retrieve, repair, store, and re-launch the airship, and we will provide the Army with parametric cost analysis to allow the trades of cost versus performance. In the Phase II, a 2007 first flight is planned to demonstrate the capability with an integrated payload - at altitude.