In August I posted this story about the Stratellite because I thought it was a very neat piece of technology and had the4 potential of increasing my ability of using my iPAQ while on the go. The following is an update on the progress on the Stratellite. You can read the first post titled So what is a Stratellite? here.
GlobeTel Communications Corp., through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sanswire Networks, LLC, today provided an update on the launch of the Stratellite prototype being built in California. The launch is set for the first quarter of 2005.
Sanswire has elected to construct the prototype in sections, made up of several sub-assemblies. The construction of the sub-assemblies began in November and will continue during the month of December. The sub-assemblies are being fashioned and tagged in an assembly line and will be shipped to the hangar to be assembled into the Stratellite prototype, Sanswire One.
Sanswire provided pictures of a sub-assembly that shows the weight of the material and overall potential size of the prototype of the Stratellite. Over 10,000 parts and over 60,000 aircraft rivets will be used in the interior structure, which requires a substantial portion of the time required to build Sanswire One. Upon assembly, the engines, guidance system and solar panels will be attached, and the testing can begin.
Joseph Seroussi, GlobeTel’s CTO (left) and Vernon Koenig, Sanswire’s Chief Engineer (right) standing to give size and scale to the top half of one “rib” of the Stratellite. The Prototype will be 84 feet long, 68 feet wide and 50 feet tall including fins. It is about one third the size of commercial vehicle, to be constructed in 2005, found on Sanswire website, www.sanswire.com. (Photo:Business Wire)
Mr. Koenig is holding a 30 foot long piece of the superstructure to demonstrate the rigid and light structure of the superstructure. This 30 ft.-long support, part of a sub-assembly, weighs a total of 4.6 pounds. Weight is very important with every factor of the airship. (Photo:Business Wire)
Mr. Koenig stands under a suspended 900 square foot section of the top of the Stratellite’s superstructure. This 900 square foot sub-assembly weighs only 35 pounds. (Photo:Business Wire)
Timothy Huff, CEO of GlobeTel Communications Corp stated, “We will continue to update our shareholders and the public on the progress of the construction of Sanswire One. The engines, guidance system and solar panels have been selected. What remains is putting the pieces together. We are very excited as our vision and dreams are being literally under construction in the dessert of California. Sanswire One will be launched in California and the test will be run for approximately 60 days.”
A Stratellite is similar to a satellite, but is stationed in the stratosphere rather than in orbit. At an altitude of over 10 miles, each Stratellite will have clear line-of-site communications capability to an entire major metropolitan area as well as being able to provide coverage across major rural areas. Several Stratellites linked together could cover many hundreds of thousands of square miles. The Stratellite will allow subscribers to easily communicate in “both directions” using readily available wireless devices. In addition to voice and data, proposed telecommunications uses include cellular, 3G/4G mobile, MMDS, paging, fixed wireless telephony, HDTV, real-time surveillance and others.
Contact: GlobeTel Communications Corp. Leigh A. Coleman, President 954.241.0590
investors@globetel.net
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