The drone, called PHASA-35, has a 115 foot wingspan, weighs 150kg and is powered by batteries at night allowing it to be airborne for several months.
It can carry a load of 15kg and applications are seen as environmental surveillance, disaster relief, border protection, maritime and military surveillance, and mobile Internet communications.
“It is the first in a series of trials planned to confirm system performance, support development activities and validate test points to enable PHASA-35 to be made available in defence and commercial markets internationally,” says BAE.
BAE says the drone can provide services ‘at a fraction of the cost’ of satellites and plans to Market PHASA-35 to military and commercial customers in the middle of the decade.
Other somar-powered flight projects have been:
Facebook’s Aquila built in Bridgwater for which development stopped in 2018.
NASA Pathfinder (First flew in June 1983)
NASA Centurion (First flight 10 November 1998)
NASA/AeroVironment Helios Prototype (First flight 8 September 1999)
QinetiQ/Airbus Zephyr (First flight in 2008)
SoftBank/AeroVironment HAPSMobile (First flight 11 September 2019)
