High-Altitude Pseudo Satellite Vehicle (HAPS)

High-Altitude Pseudo Satellite Vehicle (HAPS)

News: Recently, The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) in Bengaluru has successfully completed the first test of a solar-powered pseudo satellite, a new-age unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

What is HAPS?
• High-Altitude Pseudo Satellite (HAPS) is a type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that operates in the stratosphere. It is designed to hover at high altitudes and can be operated for extended periods, up to 90 days.

Key features:
• Altitude and Endurance: HAPS can fly at altitudes of 18-20 km from the ground, almost double the heights attained by commercial airplanes. Thanks to its ability to generate solar power, it can remain in air for months, even years.
• Applications: HAPS has both military and civilian applications. It can significantly increase surveillance and monitoring capabilities in border areas.
• Cost benefits: HAPS operate closer to Earth than satellites and do not require expensive rocket launches for deployment.
• Solar-Powered Operation: A distinguishing feature of India’s HAPS is its reliance on solar power for sustained operation.
• Advantages of a satellite: due to its ability to generate solar power, it can remain in air for months, even years, offering it the advantages of a satellite.
• Better solution: HAPS can be very useful in disaster situations as well.

Need:
• The need for development of high-endurance, high-altitude flying instruments arose from the desire to have continuous surveillance of border areas to detect changes or movements, particularly in the wake of the Doklam standoff in 2017.
• Issue with the present system:
o Battery-powered UAVs can remain in air for a limited period of time and can scan relatively smaller areas.
o Satellites placed in low-earth orbits and meant to observe the Earth usually move in their orbits and are not watching constantly.

Conclusion:
• This technology is still developing, and the successful test flight puts India among a very small group of countries currently experimenting with this technology.