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Kansas City Space Pirates attempt to set new record for laser-powered flight
The Kansas City Space Pirates (KCSP) were formed to build a series of laser-powered 'climbers' for NASA Space Elevator Games 2005-2009. The space elevator games are currently dormant; but, the KCSP group is still active with a project to build laser powered model helicopters.This weekend, the Kansas City Space Pirates will attempt to set a record for laser powered flight by keeping one of their models flying from 6:30PM CDT Friday to 6:30PM Sunday to beat a previous record of 12 hours, 27 minutes. Their flight will be carried live on: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/brianturner
4 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Here's the communication I got from Brian Turner of the KCSP:
We successfully beat the Laser Powered flight endurance record by double. Our flight time was 25 hours, 0 Minutes and 35 seconds. This was done at the VOX theater in Kansas City Kansas. We used a highly modified AR-Drone Quadcopter. We did this with 500 watts of laser power and non-exotic photovoltaic cells. Our total systems hardware costs were less than $30,000. I estimate this is well less than 1/3 of the 2009 record. Much of the hardware would cost even less if purchased today. This shows the exponential increase in human technological abilities is alive and well and that commercial laser powered flight applications are only a few years away. We can look forward to flying cell towers, autonomous shark patrols and countless other applications that only become practical with beam powered flight.
Achieving the record was not without drama. The planed for 48 hours got trimmed back to 24. We continued to 25 so we could double the previous record. Turns out that human endurance plays a role as we became tired human mistakes became a prominent concern. The lasers themselves worked flawlessly. The optics needed adjustment at the start. The quadcopter behaved like the finicky result of hacking a toy for purposes well beyond those it’s creators ever imagined. The Kansas City Star article covered all this well with this article: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/09/29/4517656/kansas-city-team-breaks-record.html
