DRDO has just tested a new airship called HAPSIt can climb to 21 kilometres and watch over large areas from thereBut if drones and satellites already do this job, why build one more thing? Because each of them falls short in some way, and an airship covers what they miss.
Published: October 14, 2026, 4:10 PM IST
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A satellite keeps circling the Earth, but an airship can hover over the same area for a long timeImage Credit: @DRDO_India/X
India is putting in a lot of effort in its defence sectorAdding to the already long list of achievements and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has now developed a High Altitude Platform System (HAPS), commonly known as an airship.
The lighter-than-air platform, a product of the Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) in Agra, attained an altitude of 21 km AMSL.
What is HAPS or an airship?
An airship or HAPS is like a large balloon, designed to operate in the stratosphereIt operates above weather systems and conventional air traffic while staying much closer to the Earth than satellites.
A satellite keeps circling the Earth, but an airship can hover over the same area for a long timeThat could make it handy for round-the-clock surveillance, communications and keeping an eye on remote regions.
At an altitude of around 20 km, such a platform could potentially provide a wide field of view, depending on its sensors, atmospheric conditions and the terrain being observed.
HAPS float in the air using the same principle as children’s gas balloonsHowever, instead of just gas, airships also contain enginesThink of the airship as a giant balloonThe main envelope holds a gas like helium, which is lighter than air, so the platform floats up on its ownAfter that, propellers driven by engines hold it in place or push it forward and back as neededThose engines usually run on electricitySolar panels make power in the daytime and charge batteries inside the balloon, so it keeps working after darkThe whole thing is operated from the ground.
Why does this matter for India?
A mature high-altitude platform station (HAPS) capability could bolster India’s monitoring of sensitive border regions, particularly in mountainous terrain where continuous surveillance is difficultThe platforms could also serve as communications relays in remote, poorly connected areas and support disaster monitoring when terrestrial networks are disrupted.
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A satellite, once launched, stays up thereAn airship in the stratosphere could in theory be brought back, repaired and sent up again, so it works quite differently for long-term observationWhether it proves worthwhile comes down to endurance, payload capacity, weather resilience and operating costs.
India is exploring airship-based pseudo-satellites for defence, and this DRDO test is part of that effortStill, the October flight is only an experimental stepIt doesn’t show that a working surveillance system able to stay up for months exists yet.
Others are well aheadAirbus in Europe has Zephyr, a solar-powered airship with propellers that can stay up for weeksChina is working on the same thing: its high-altitude balloons have turned up in many places, and it is believed to be building airships with very advanced systemsJapan is putting money into such platforms for communication.
India, by comparison, is just getting startedDRDO went up to 17 km before and has now reached 21 km, but it has only tested endurance for about half an hourThe government has cleared a programme worth roughly Rs 15,000 crore, with private companies on board, and a few Indian startups are doing small tests too.
