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(from Greek ἀήρ aer (air) + στατός statos (standing) through french)
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-an aerostat is a ‘lighter than air’ craft that gains its lift through the use of a ‘buoyant gas’-
Aerostats include unpowered balloons and powered airships.
A balloon may be free-flying or tethered.
The average density of the craft is lower than the density of atmospheric air, because its main component is one or more gasbags, a lightweight skin containing a lifting gas to provide buoyancy, to which other components such as a gondola containing equipment or people are attached.
(especially with ‘airships’, the ‘gasbags’ are often protected by an ‘outer envelope’)
(‘aerostats’ are so named because they use aerostatic lift which is a buoyant force that does not require movement through the surrounding ‘air mass’)
(this contrasts with the heavy aerodynes that primarily use aerodynamic lift which requires the movement of a wing surface through the surrounding air mass)
(the term has also been used in a narrower sense, to refer to the statically tethered balloon in contrast to the free-flying ‘airship’)
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(this article uses the term in its broader sense)
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