The purpose of the High Altitude Federation is to design incrementally progressive high altitude capabilities for intelligence, reconnaissance, surveillance, remote sensing, and communications that will solve the nation’s critical need for persistent presence.  This will be enabled through the High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Project which is a congressionally-funded effort.  The HALE project is a joint venture between the US ASMDBL, NASA, civilian and military contractors and several universities within the State of Ohio.  The collaborative team is known as the High Altitude Federation.  This Federation is focused on the following:
•    Support national interest in developing high altitude operations
•    Conduct high altitude concept development and experimentation
•    Research vehicles and payloads to achieve optimization for high altitude
•    Develop capabilities and concepts of operations for aerostats in support of the DoD, Homeland Defense, and other regional and national interests

http://www.highaltitudefederation.com/2009/03/test-post-for-this-site/