JP Aerospace airship on its way to setting a new altitude record.
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The Sports Network
RANCHO CORDOVA, CA - JP Aerospace, a small group of volunteer aerospace engineers, working out of a warehouse in Rancho Cordova became the first team to successfully fly a helium-filled, lighter-than-air ship to the edge of space. And they did it using propellers powered by motors from kids' electric scooters.
The Defense Department said they would like to have a fleet of high altitude airships maneuvering at the edge of space. The airships could be used to carry communications equipment or as floating platforms, from which surveillance cameras could capture terrorist training camps, battlefields, or hurricanes.
These types of airships could become an economical alternative to costly spy and weather satellites.
One major aerospace company recently spent millions of dollars to build a high altitude airship that looked similar to the Goodyear blimp. But it only flew to 30,000 feet before a malfunction forced it to crash land into a forest.
JP Aerospace built its helium airship for a cost of $30,000, which included the rent on the company's warehouse in Rancho Cordova.
The JPA airship was launched over Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada. It climbed to an altitude of 95,085 feet, beating the previous airship altitude record by more than 20,000 feet.
"The notion that we could throw together something, just our little amateur group, and succeed where they have failed is considered 'you just can't do that'," said John Powell, President of JP Aerospace. "This has been one of the realms that only the giant aerospace guys have been playing in. And they haven't been playing very well. They have a lot of failures."
NASA has already contacted JP Aerospace about flying science experiments on its Tandem airship. The eventual goal of JP Aerospace is to fly a lighter-than-air ship all the way into orbit around the earth.
News10/KXTV