Boeing [BA] said yesterday the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) restructured its 2010 contract to build a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight demonstrator over technology maturation concerns.
Boeing was awarded an $89 million contract in 2010 to develop and fly a solar-powered UAV flight demonstrator, called SolarEagle, by 2014 as part of the Vulture II demonstration program, according to a statement. Boeing spokeswoman Deborah Van Nierop told Defense Daily yesterday the company and DARPA discussed what to do with the SolarEagle demonstrator one month ago and decided Boeing needed to focus on solar collection and energy subsystems, including solid fuel cells, over the remainder of the contract.
“(We) won’t build one in the near term,” Van Nierop said. “Certainly not until we mature the necessary technology.”
Van Nierop said Boeing has no estimated date for when the SolarEagle demonstrator may make its debut.
DARPA said in a statement on its website the solar collection and fuel cells technologies are vital for enabling ultra-persistent, high-altitude and long-endurance (HALE) flights lasting multiple years.
“By narrowing the program’s focus, DARPA seeks to advance energy management technologies that would benefit a number of future HALE aircraft applications and should reduce risk for development of future very long-endurance aircraft programs,” DARPA said in a statement.
In a 2010 statement, Boeing touted the SolarEagle demonstrator as remaining in the upper atmosphere for 30 days by harvesting solar energy during the day that would be stored in fuel cells and used to provide power during the night. The SolarEagle demonstrator would also have highly-efficient electric motors and propellers and a high-aspect-ratio, 400-foot wing for increased solar power and aerodynamic performance, according to a statement.
Pat O’Neil, Boeing Phantom Works program manager for Vulture II, said in a 2010 statement the SolarEagle’s eventual goal is to remain “on station” at stratospheric altitudes for at least five years.
DARPA said in a statement Vulture II’s advanced energy storage system technologies ultimately could enable a re-taskable, persistent pseudo-satellite capability in an aircraft package. It also said such a system would combine key benefits of an aircraft (flexibility and responsiveness, sensor resolution, reduced transmit/receive power and affordability) with the benefits of space assets (on-station persistence, no logistics tail, energy independence, fleet size and absence of in-country footprint).