A high-altitude telecommunications platform baptised the “X-Station” has been developed by  engineer and entrepreneur of Iranian origin, Kamal Alavi and his Scientific Coordinator, the Professor Jean-Philippe Thiran, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne.  Suspended from a dirigible airship, fuelled by solar energy, this station must remain immobile in relation to the earth, in the stratosphere, 21 kilometres from the globe.

The technological challenges are numerous: the envelope must be resistant to dilatation, the balloon and the equipment aboard need to be insulated from the extreme changes of temperature, motors must be powerful enough to face winds that, in the winter, can reach 150 km an hour, and recuperation of the useful load, thanks to a detachable nacelle in the shape of a spaceship.

The American NASA and its Japanese counterpart have been unsuccessful to the challenge.  Yet Kamal Alavi and Jean-Philippe Thiran are confident and they will launch, in real conditions, their X-Station next October.  Attached to a 100 metre long dirigible, currently under construction, this will take place in the old LEGO factory in Willisau (LU).  The two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, the University of Neuchatel, the aerospace branch of the armament factory RUAG and the Swiss Materials and Science Technology Institute (EMPA) are all participating to the project.  Its spiritual father, Kamal Alavi, may speak of a dream, but a date has been made with reality: the X-Station’s “uncle”, the Professor Thiran, opened the doors of the ex-LEGO factory of Willisau, where the prototype is currently under construction, to Frédéric Blassel.


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