{"id":81695,"date":"2018-08-13T17:42:39","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T00:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/solar-powered-aircraft-stays-aloft-for-record-breaking-25-days"},"modified":"2018-08-13T17:42:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T00:42:39","slug":"solar-powered-aircraft-stays-aloft-for-record-breaking-25-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/08\/solar-powered-aircraft-stays-aloft-for-record-breaking-25-days","title":{"rendered":"Solar-powered aircraft stays aloft for record-breaking 25 days"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0IZW7llqReM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While Facebook and Google recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2018\/06\/26\/facebook-stops-making-internet-drones\/\">pulled the plug<\/a> on their solar-powered <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2017\/01\/11\/alphabet-canceled-titan-drone-project\/\">internet drones<\/a>, another company with a lot more experience is having success with the idea. Airbus <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airbus.com\/newsroom\/press-releases\/en\/2018\/08\/Airbus-Zephyr-Solar-High-Altitude-Pseudo-Satellite-flies-for-longer-than-any-other-aircraft.html\">announced<\/a> that its solar-powered Zephyr S HAPS (high altitude pseudo-satellite) flew for 25 straight days, setting a time aloft record for any airplane, ever. It shattered the previous record of 14 days, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.standard.co.uk\/news\/transport\/solarpowered-drone-acquired-by-british-military-sets-new-record-with-14day-unrefuelled-flight-a3896486.html\">marked<\/a> by a previous prototype Zephyr aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>The Zephyr flies on sun power alone at over 70,000 feet, an altitude that just a few aircraft like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2016\/11\/11\/booms-supersonic-jets-will-pick-up-where-the-concorde-left-off\/\">Concorde<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2018\/01\/19\/lockheed-son-of-blackbird-sr-72-spy-plane\/\">SR-71 Blackbird<\/a> have reached. That\u2019s well above any weather, and lets it perform reconnaissance, surveillance and communications\/internet duties. \u201c[It fills a] capability gap complimentary to satellites, UAVs and manned aircraft to provide persistent local satellite-like services,\u201d Airbus said in a press release. A video of the takeoff (below) shows that it can be lifted and launched by hand. Once aloft, it can be operated for a fraction the cost of a satellite.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2018\/08\/13\/airbus-solar-powered-zephyr-drone-record\/\">https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2018\/08\/13\/airbus-solar-powered-zephyr-drone-record\/<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While Facebook and Google recently pulled the plug on their solar-powered internet drones, another company with a lot more experience is having success with the idea. Airbus announced that its solar-powered Zephyr S HAPS (high altitude pseudo-satellite) flew for 25 straight days, setting a time aloft record for any airplane, ever. It shattered the previous [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1488,418,2028,1511,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drones","category-internet","category-satellites","category-surveillance","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81695","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=81695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}