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by Staff Writers Black Rock Desert, Nev. (UPI) Oct 27, 2011
An unmanned airship created by a California company flew 95,085 feet into the air, higher than any airship in history, the company said. JP Aerospace of Rancho Cordova took the twin-balloon Tandem airship to Nevada's Black Rock Desert Sunday for the launch, KTXL-TV, Sacramento, Calif., reported. Remotely controlled by an operator on the ground, the Tandem's two balloons are separated by a 30-foot-long carbon fiber truss while two 6-foot propellers are each driven by an electric motor to maneuver the airship. Once at the record-breaking height, the motors were turned on to fly the ship through a series of maneuvers. However, when one of the balloons burst the Tandem was brought down to a soft landing with the help of five parachutes. Tandem was built to be a "workhorse vehicle" to carry smaller research rockets to high altitudes at a fraction of the cost large aerospace companies are spending, company officials said, "We've spent about $30,000 and the past five years developing Tandem," JP Aerospace President John Powell said in a release.
Aerospace News at SpaceMart.com
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