Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

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

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.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 23 2018, @09:06AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 23 2018, @09:06AM (#725120)

    My guess is the USA has enough military reconnaissance. Stuff like this just brings the cost down and there's no U2 to be shot down etc.

    For a similar reason my guess is a fair number in the US Gov/Military know where MH370 is. They're not revealing that they know because there's no benefit to them[1] and there was far more benefit to wait and see whether China will reveal that they had that capability (lots of Chinese citizens were on that plane).

    But if they really don't know where MH370 is then the US DOESN'T have enough reconnaissance. And the US Gov really has crappy reconnaissance and surveillance for all those trillions spent.

    1) That area has some strategic significance - Malacca straits and South China Sea.
    2) There was a joint military exercise going on at the same time that included the USA. So it's hard to believe no one was watching that area close enough. (BTW there are some theories that MH370 was shot down by mistake during that exercise...).

    [1] They probably only looked for it after the it became news, found it and figured everyone onboard was probably dead already.