A race is on to construct a fleet of solar-powered drones that beam web right down to the Earth beneath them, and the tech titans are dominating this chase—or so we thought. But now that Google and Facebook each have dashed their plans for roaming unmanned web planes, a lesser known company is partnering with NASA to bring the project closer to reality, based on an IEEE Spectrum report.
It’s the Hawk 30, an enormous 10-engine drone within the vein of previous UAVs made by Airbus and the solar-powered Odysseus plane that may fly for months on end. The product of Japanese tech giant SoftBank and U.S. drone manufacturer AeroEnvironment, the Hawk could soon embark on test flights, with a launch from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center potentially slated for this week.
The Hawk, though a part of a brand new $65 million partnership between the 2 firms, is an element of the identical family as previous UAVs AeroEnvironment built for NASA. Considered one of those was the Helios prototype, which crashed in 2003 during a high-altitude test. The Hawk mirrors its ill-fated predecessor in each ambition and design. In 2001, the Helios reached the very best altitude of any winged horizontal aircraft when it ascended to 93,000 feet. The milestone set a brand new precedent for high-altitude, solar aircraft.
Photos of the Hawk 30 are scant, but per images dug up by IEEE Spectrum, it looks just like the wide-bodied cousin of the Helios.
While it might be years from business readiness, the Hawk 30 has big implications for the broadening of wireless connectivity in distant regions, if indeed it may possibly succeed where others have failed: Facebook made a splashy foray into the internet-beaming drone race by announcing Aquila, a solar-powered UAV the dimensions of a Boeing 737’s wingspan that used propellers to ply air. (The project was abandoned in 2017 after the drones were damaged in landings). Google too began vetting its sky-born web capabilities in 2015, but later scrapped drones in favor of Project Loon, which uses high-altitude balloons to beam down web.
The Hawk will still need to fend off competition from the likes of Airbus, but its prospects are lifted by AeroEnvironments connections with NASA. IEEE Spectrum reports the corporate is contracted with the space agency for 3 flight tests that can take the drone as much as 10,000 feet, with the intention go much higher if initial tests are successful:
AeroVironment is paying NASA nearly $800,000 to supervise and supply ground support for the upcoming low altitude tests, that are scheduled to proceed until the tip of June. If those are successful, the corporate will go higher in its next round.
There’s currently no word on the Hawk’s communications payload capability, but its creators actually hope that it helps expand wireless web access across the globe. First, though, it would need to make it out of testing unscathed.
Source: IEEE Spectrum