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High-Flying Pseudo-Satellite Drone Sets New Endurance Record

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday August 22 2018, @07:36AM   Printer-friendly
from the high-flyer dept.

chromas (from IRC) writes:

NBC News:

A solar-powered drone designed to take on the multimillion-dollar market for satellites in space has set a record by staying in flight at high altitude for nearly 26 days. Airbus has plenty of plans for its so-called pseudo-satellite, including possible military reconnaissance and monitoring the spread of wildfires, among other activities.

The European aerospace consortium Airbus announced that the latest model of its Zephyr drone had landed near Yuma, Arizona, late last week, after staying on the wing continuously for 25 days, 23 hours and 57 minutes, and breaking a world record for long-endurance flight.

The drone was driven by electric power from solar panels on its wings during daylight, when it flew at altitudes above 70,000 feet (21,300 meters), Airbus spokesman Alain Dupiech told Live Science.

At night, the drone used stored battery power, dropping to around 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) by morning — well above any clouds and bad weather, and higher than regular air traffic, except military spy planes , Dupiech said.

Previously, the endurance record was held by an older prototype of the Zephyr drone, which stayed airborne 14 days in 2014.

Airbus hopes the latest Zephyr drone will take on some of the commercial market for satellite launches into Earth orbit, by carrying out tasks like high-altitude photography and environmental monitoring for weeks or months at a time.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Wednesday August 22 2018, @10:19AM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Wednesday August 22 2018, @10:19AM (#724598) Journal

    Air-Breathing Electric Thruster Tested; Could Enable Long-Lived Satellites in Low Orbits [soylentnews.org]

    This drone or the air-breathing electric thruster could easily have peaceful applications. Extremely low latency "satellite" Internet service, for example. Military satellite surveillance is already better than anything you've ever seen. They take a Hubblesque telescope, and they point it at Earth.

    The future of targeted strikes probably involves tinier drones. Maybe pack some antimatter into it [wikipedia.org]. Is that a dragonfly or are you about to die?

    How do you explain Pearl Harbor, The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Midway Island, Iwo Jima, the Manhattan Project and radiation sickness to your _pets_?

    I just tell them, "Don't look into this laser pointer with your remaining eye."

    The defense posited by the folks that feel the synthesis should remain in the article point out that there's lots of other chemisty that's not discussed and also that one particular precursor is _heavily_ controlled.

    There are a lot of easier ways to kill someone that don't involve VX. You use VX when you want to send a message. Kind of like Polonium.

    Look NASA says that the very-most basic requirement for life are something like Hydrogen, Oxygen, Potassium, Phosphorus, Carbon and a couple others.

    Nitrogen! [wikipedia.org]

    Nitrogen can be used as a replacement, or in combination with, carbon dioxide to pressurise kegs of some beers, particularly stouts and British ales, due to the smaller bubbles it produces, which makes the dispensed beer smoother and headier. A pressure-sensitive nitrogen capsule known commonly as a "widget" allows nitrogen-charged beers to be packaged in cans and bottles.

    ---

    More or less what you do is swill those ingredients around more or less at random for a billion or two

    If you read this recent story [soylentnews.org] and others, you'd know the swilling could lead to abiogenesis pretty quickly. Maybe as fast as tens of millions of years. Planet cools off, and boom, there's life.

    The Soviets supplied Syria with a whole bunch of SCUDS, each of which can strike anywhere in the Holy Land. [...] The Syrians souped-up all those SCUDS. They didn't need longer range but I expect they're no far-more accurate. [...] Were Assad to give the OK, all those SCUDS would be launched all over Israel

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Outside_the_Box [wikipedia.org]
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-israel-lake/israel-attacks-syrian-launcher-that-fired-rockets-thought-to-have-landed-in-sea-of-galilee-idUSKBN1KF2OF [reuters.com]

    Israel has attacked Syria multiple times. What's Assad waiting for? Maybe for Iron Dome to not exist, since Israel has claimed that it can shoot down Scud missiles. If it is as effective as they claim, the "suicide by attacking Israel" option doesn't look as rewarding.

    --
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    Starting Score:    1  point
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