{"id":102887,"date":"2020-02-26T08:06:54","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T16:06:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/unmanned-solar-aircraft-aims-to-compete-commercially-with-satellites-and-drones"},"modified":"2020-02-26T08:06:54","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T16:06:54","slug":"unmanned-solar-aircraft-aims-to-compete-commercially-with-satellites-and-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/unmanned-solar-aircraft-aims-to-compete-commercially-with-satellites-and-drones","title":{"rendered":"Unmanned Solar Aircraft Aims to Compete Commercially With Satellites and Drones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/unmanned-solar-aircraft-aims-to-compete-commercially-with-satellites-and-drones.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At 35 meters, the wingspan of the new <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baesystems.com\/en\/home\">BAE Systems<\/a> aircraft equals that of a Boeing 737, yet the plane weighs in at just 150 kilograms, including a 15 kg payload. The unmanned plane, dubbed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baesystems.com\/en\/article\/ground-breaking-solar-powered-unmanned-aircraft-makes-first-flight\">PHASA-35<\/a> (Persistent High-Altitude Solar Aircraft), made its maiden voyage on 10 February at the Royal Australian Air Force Woomera Test Range in South Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt flew for just under an hour\u2014enough time to successfully test its aerodynamics, autopilot system, and maneuverability,\u201d says Phil Varty, business development leader of emerging products at BAE Systems. \u201cWe\u2019d previously tested other sub-systems such as the flight control system in smaller models of the plane in the U.K. and Australia, so we\u2019d taken much of the risk out of the craft before the test flight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The prototype aircraft uses gallium arsenide\u2013based triple-junction solar cell panels manufactured by <a href=\"http:\/\/mldevices.com\"> MicroLink Devices<\/a> in Niles, Ill. MicroLink claims an energy conversion efficiency of 31 percent for these specialist panels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At 35 meters, the wingspan of the new BAE Systems aircraft equals that of a Boeing 737, yet the plane weighs in at just 150 kilograms, including a 15 kg payload. The unmanned plane, dubbed the PHASA-35 (Persistent High-Altitude Solar Aircraft), made its maiden voyage on 10 February at the Royal Australian Air Force Woomera [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1488,6,2028,1633,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-drones","category-robotics-ai","category-satellites","category-solar-power","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}