JP Aerospace is a volunteer-based organization dedicated to achieving affordable access to space. They have been hired by the U.S. Air Force to provide concepts to allow rapid launch of battlefield communication and monitoring systems.

JP Aerospace was founded by John Marchel Powell, familiarly known as "JP". Since its inception, JP Aerospace has had a special interest in lighter-than-air flight. Their stated purpose is achieving cheap access to space. JP Aerospace has uniquely chosen inflatable, buoyant components as a primary means of propulsion as opposed to standard rocket propulsion.

The group entered as a contestant in the Space Frontier Foundation

Space Frontier Foundation

The Space Frontier Foundation is a space advocacy nonprofit corporation organized to promote the interests of increased involvement of the private sector, in collaboration with government, in the exploration and development of space...

 Cheap Access to Space (CATS) Prize in the late 1990s. An unsuccessful suborbital

Sub-orbital spaceflight

A sub-orbital space flight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches space, but its trajectory intersects the atmosphere or surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched, so that it does not complete one orbital revolution....

 space launch attempt using a rockoon

Rockoon

A rockoon is a solid fuel sounding rocket that, rather than being immediately lit while on the ground, is first carried into the upper atmosphere by a gas-filled balloon, then separated from the balloon and automatically ignited...

 (balloon-launched high power rocket) was covered by CNN at the Black Rock Desert

Black Rock Desert

The Black Rock Desert is an arid region in the northern Nevada section of the Great Basin with a lakebed that is a dry remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan...

 in northwestern Nevada in May 1999. The CATS Prize expired without being awarded in November 2000.

Since then, JP Aerospace has worked with a number of clients interested in launching cameras into the upper atmosphere via balloons, including The Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and Toshiba

Toshiba

is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...

 (for their 2009 television commercial Space Chair

Space Chair

Space Chair is a British television and cinema advertisement launched by Toshiba in 2009 to promote its Regza SD LCD televisions. The 60-second piece, following the launch of an armchair into near space attached to a weather balloon, is the second in the "Projects" campaign, following on from Time...

). Their Tandem vehicle set the airship altitude record of 95,085 feet on October 22, 2011.

Flight architecture

The inflatable architecture incorporates three separate components to achieve orbit. This is primarily due to the different constraints on airships in the lower atmosphere versus the constraints on airships in the upper atmosphere. The full course of the process involves the Ascender, the Dark Sky Station, and the Orbital Ascender.

Ascender

The Ascender airship operates between the ground and the Dark Sky Station at 140,000 feet. It is built to withstand the environment of the lower atmosphere. Higher wind speeds would prevent an airship large enough to remain buoyant in the orbital environment from operating in this region.

Flight of this vehicle is achieved through a combination of buoyancy and aerodynamic lift driven by propellers designed to operate in a near vacuum.

Currently JP aerospace has developed two large-scale test models, the Ascender 90 and the Ascender 175. The number denotes the length of the airship, in feet. The final version will be operated by a crew of three and can transport passengers or cargo.

Dark Sky Station

The Dark Sky Station is an intermediate phase allowing transfer of cargo or personnel between the Ascender stage and the orbital stage. Additionally it would function as a permanent, manned high-altitude station which could be used for reconnaissance, telecommunications, or high altitude construction. Due to the design of the Orbital Ascender around the orbital environment, it would be constructed at the station.

Orbital Ascender

The final flight phase would travel from the station to orbit using the Orbital Ascender airship. Because of the thin atmosphere at such high altitudes, this craft will have to be over a mile long to remain buoyant. It would operate as a lighter-than-air craft from the station at 140,000 feet to 180,000 feet. At this point it would begin to accelerate using electric propulsion. Employing orbital dynamics, it will slowly increase velocity to orbital velocity, lifting it up to the appropriate altitude.

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