The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) is poised to achieve a major breakthrough in aerospace technology with the upcoming test flight of its full-scale High-Altitude Platform System (HAPS) by December 2025. This ambitious project signifies a significant step towards India's self-reliance in advanced surveillance and communication technologies.
HAPS are unmanned aerial vehicles designed to operate in the stratosphere, approximately 18 to 20 kilometers above sea level. Occupying a space between conventional aircraft and satellites, HAPS offer a unique blend of capabilities. They provide persistent, wide-area coverage similar to satellites, but with the added flexibility and cost-effectiveness of an aircraft.
NAL's HAPS is designed to achieve an unprecedented endurance of up to 90 days, pushing the boundaries of airborne persistence. This remarkable feat is made possible by advanced gallium arsenide solar panels, which are significantly more efficient than traditional silicon-based cells, allowing the HAPS to harness solar energy for sustained operation.
From its stratospheric perch, the HAPS will be instrumental in a variety of applications, including surveillance, border monitoring, disaster management, and delivering broadband internet connectivity to remote and underserved regions.
The upcoming full-scale test flight follows successful trials of a smaller-scale HAPS prototype in 2024. These tests demonstrated the viability of the concept, with the prototype flying at 3,000 feet equipped with a synthetic aperture radar payload and later at 25,000 feet without the payload.
Further demonstrating India's growing prowess in aerospace engineering, NAL is developing the autopilot system software in-house, while the hardware will be sourced externally.
The successful development and deployment of the full-scale HAPS will undoubtedly position India as a leader in this emerging field, with far-reaching implications for the nation's defence, communication, and disaster response capabilities.
