{"id":87594,"date":"2026-02-13T14:39:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=87594"},"modified":"2026-02-13T14:50:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:20:41","slug":"air-ships-based-high-altitude-pseudo-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/air-ships-based-high-altitude-pseudo-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"Air-Ships Based High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (AS-HAPS)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Air-Ships Based High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (AS-HAPS) Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Defence Acquisition Council recently granted Acceptance of Necessity to the procurement of Air-Ships Based High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (AS-HAPS) for the Indian Air Force.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Air-Ships Based High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (AS-HAPS)<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">HAPS are <\/span><b>solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> designed to <\/span><b>operate in the stratosphere<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at altitudes of approximately 18-20 kilometres, nearly <\/span><b>double the cruising altitude of commercial aircraft.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike conventional satellites that orbit at least 200 km above Earth and require expensive rocket launches, HAPS platforms can <\/span><b>remain airborne for months or even years using solar power during the day <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and<\/span><b> high-density batteries at night.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This gives them <\/span><b>satellite-like capabilities at a fraction of the cost,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> hence the term <\/span><b>&#8220;pseudo satellite.&#8221;<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">HAPS <\/span><b>hovers persistently over specific locations,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> providing <\/span><b>real-time monitoring of border areas<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to detect changes or movements.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Equipped with <\/span><b>high-definition optical and infrared camera<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s, state-of-the-art <\/span><b>sensors<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, these aerial platforms are <\/span><b>suitable for round-the-clock missions, border patrolling, target tracking<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, maritime surveillance and navigation, and even <\/span><b>missile detection.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>India and HAPS:<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India has been <\/span><b>developing indigenous HAPS capability<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> through the <\/span><b>National Aerospace Laboratories in Bengaluru.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>In February 2024, NAL successfully tested<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a scaled-down <\/span><b>prototype <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">at the Challakere Aeronautical Test Range in Karnataka&#8217;s Chitradurga district.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The 23-kg prototype, with a wingspan of 12 metres, flew for about eight and a half hours at an altitude of 3 km, meeting or exceeding all performance metrics.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/swarajyamag.com\/defence\/high-altitude-pseudo-satellite-gets-dac-nod-heres-what-it-is-and-why-india-needs-it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SM<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Air-Ships Based High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite are solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles designed to operate in the stratosphere at altitudes of approximately 18-20 kilometres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":87560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5380,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-87594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-air-ships-based-high-altitude-pseudo-satellite","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87594"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87625,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87594\/revisions\/87625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}