The Tethered Aerostat Radar System (TARS) [1] is an American low-level airborne ground surveillance system that uses aerostats (moored balloons) as radar platforms. Similar systems include the EL/M-2083 and JLENS.

Eight special blimps that are part of the Tethered Aerostat Radar System, or TARS, watch over the southern U.S. border. Each balloon is moored to the ground with a special nylon fiber cable, and raised and lowered with a powered winch.

In 2003, a series of blimp-shaped air vehicles began rising, one after another, over the arid terrain of Afghanistan. The unusual-looking ships—helium-filled aircraft called aerostats—rose to an altitude of 15,000 feet and floated quietly in the sky, each secured to a ground-based mooring system by long tethers.

Airships, balloons, and blimps generate buoyancy lift or aerostatic lift using an envelope filled with a less dense gas than air, such as helium, enabling them to fly freely and “float” without needing forward airspeed. Such aircraft have been collectively called “airships” or “aerostats.”

Most TARS sites use the 420K blimp, a 208-foot-long balloon, filled with 420,000 cubic feet of helium, made by TCOM and Lockheed. Inside the blimp is more than a ton of radar equipment, powered by a diesel generator, capable of seeing any aircraft or boat, as small as an ultralight, within 200 miles.

Sky Dew (Tal Shamayim in Hebrew (טל שמיים)), or High Availability Aerostat System (HAAS), is a high altitude missile defense aerostat used by Israel Defence Forces since 2022. The radar system was developed by Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO) and the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

The smallest aerostat is about twice the size of the Goodyear Blimp. The 275,000 cubic foot, aerodynamically shaped balloon measures 175 feet long by 58 feet across the hull, with a tip-to-tip tail span of 81 feet. The aerostat system lifts a 1,200 pound payload to operating altitude for low-level radar coverage.

Tethered aerostats are unmanned non-rigid lighter-than-air vehicles (a.k.a. blimps), which remain anchored to the ground by one or more ropes. They are used for various surveillance tasks, where a low-cost long-endurance (up to a month) stationary aerial platform is needed.

A radar-equipped blimp in southern Arizona that helped authorities detect airborne drug traffickers is being replaced with a sleeker, less-expensive version. The 12,000-pound helium-filled blimp, also known as an aerostat, floated over Fort Huachuca for 14 years before being taken down in …

CUV produces and sells small mobile tethered aerostat (blimp) systems for multiple uses. These are complete “Turn-key” systems with all equipment, including winch, helium system, and generator, carried by a single high mobility trailer.