PurposeIn recent years, high‐altitude/long‐endurance airship platforms have generated great interest as a means to provide communications and surveillance capabilities. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model for airship conceptual design and help provide insight into the viability of high‐altitude/long‐endurance airships.Design/methodology/approachA configuration analysis model with the consideration of pressure difference, temperature difference, and helium purity, etc. was developed. The influences of the airship payload, size and area required of solar cell with environment and operation parameters, such as operation latitude, pressure difference, temperature difference, helium purity, seasons, latitude, and wind speed, etc. were analyzed.FindingsThe results show that the area of solar cell required for stratospheric airship is very large under the condition of low altitude, high latitude, wind, and in winter, etc. which might make the design of high‐altitude/long‐endurance airship an elusive goal. They also show that the solar cell efficiency is the key technology in the control of solar cell area required for airships, and the technology advances in regenerative fuel cells and propeller efficiency have significant effects among on the airship payload, size, and solar cell area required for airship.Originality/valueThe paper analyses the energy balance of the high‐altitude/long‐endurance airship.

The hopper vehicle is proposed as an alternative mobility concept for exploration of the Martian surface. Preliminary design of the hopper vehicle with CO 2 thermal rocket for Mars mission is analyzed. The results show that the design domain can be enlarged by reducing the number of hops N. However, the less number of hops N means visiting the less sites on the Mars surface. The determination of the number of hops N and mission configuration is one of compromise. Additional, the results show that technology advances in the specific impulse Isp of propulsion system can enlarge the hopper vehicle design domains..

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract