“US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program known as “Vulture.” 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.”
“DARPA intends to release a BAA entitled “Vulture II” for Phase II of the Vulture program in October 2009…. The Vulture II program is budgeted at $155M total. This budget must support all performer costs including test range and government test facility costs. Performer tasks are envisioned to include risk reduction of key components, subsystems and systems; material identification and characterization; detail design, manufacturing and flight test of a full scale platform to demonstrate structural integrity, thorough understanding of aeroelastic and flight controls attributes and other critical function and capability of all elements of the Vulture II program….”
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October 1, 2009 at 4:56 pm