The purpose of this thread is to locate useful open source information regarding Lockheed's UAV goals, interests etc.
The purpose of researching this to to gain possible insight into why DARPA as late as December 2010 was investigating EEStor by contacting AFRL. The DARPA researcher says Lockheed wanted it as part of their predator UAV...
YPo pointed out that Predator is made by General Atomics. Correct. But Lockheed is apparently a subcontractor on that program.
Thread rules: discuss the significance of the DARPA FOIA's in the other thread.I would prefer people simply post information related to Lockheed UAV's...to see what DARPA may have been evaluating from them around December 2010. Maybe it's nothing. We don't know though because DARPA isn't very good at responding to FOIA requests.
Here are some links of interest to this discussion. Feel free to pull out snippets you find interesting.
Good overview of DARPA Vulture Program. It suggests Vulture is currently in Phase 2.
DARPA’s goals for Vulture are not trivial: 5 years on station with a 450kg/ 1,000lb payload, 5kW of onboard power, and sufficient loiter speed to stay on station for 99% of the time against winds encountered at 60,000-90,000 feet.
The engineering challenges ahead are formidable, as one would expect for a DARPA project. The power system in particular must be extremely reliable, and the aircraft’s materials will require advances of their own. The winning designs will be exposed to far more warming and cooling than satellites, and more ultraviolet radiation which will affect the aircraft’s materials. The design is also likely to require very large wings, both to help keep it aloft and to accommodate the number of solar cells required. Conditions at altitude can challenge the durability of those wings, especially with hydrogen storage tanks attached. Aerovironment’s Helios (1998-2003) demonstrated this the hard way in its 2003 crash.
The Phase 2 risk reduction development and testing phase (2009 – mid-2012) go-ahead would build and testing a subscale demonstrators capable of flying for 3 months, and would end with an uninterrupted 3-month system flight demonstration. Exit criteria will include:
Execute a technology maturation roadmap that systemically reduces performance and reliability risks;
Provide risk reduction through laboratory/field demonstrations of key major subsystems ability to achieve reliability/mission success objectives;
Establish a Preliminary Design for the Objective System;
Develop a detailed Full-Scale Demonstrator design that can be recovered and re-launched;
Document and demonstrate flight airworthiness, and conduct a minimum of 30 days continuous flight demonstration, to include structural/ aeroelastic data and validation of software development design codes;
Deliver/update proposed military utility analysis, CONOPS (CONcept of OPerationS), and a provide 5 year mission life cycle cost of the Objective System based on Phase II analysis and validations;
Deliver/update the detailed development approach and Technology Maturation Plan necessary to achieve an operational system at the culmination of Phase II.
Also, if you are wondering why DARPA is asking AFRL about something related to a UAV, here is your answer:
For the Vulture project, DARPA is supported by a government team including the US Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The Pentagon is not confirming what type of ISR equipment was used in the May 1 [Bin Laden] raid or the operation leading up to it, but speculation has centered on Lockheed Martin’s RQ-170 Sentinel, a stealthy UAV that gathers intelligence and now has a full-motion video capability, and a low-observable variant of the H-60 Black Hawk.
Last edited Thu, 12 May 2011, 12:42pm by eestorblog