Facebook’s brand new drone has successfully finished the first test flight. Facebook Aquila drone, which runs on solar energy, is aimed to spread internet access to each and every place on the Earth.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook has announced the news through a post on his Facebook page. He mentioned that the drone named Aquila features a lightweight construction and has been designed to fly in high attitudes. The social networking giant intends to prepare a fleet of the new drones having a minimum flight duration of three months in a go.
The Aquilas should be able to maintain a steady altitude of 18,290 meters or 60,000 feet for this entire period of time. All drones in the fleet will be inter-connected to provide seamless internet connectivity to the desired area.
Alphabet Inc, the parent company of Google, has also invested heavily in Project Loon, which has the target of providing internet connectivity in different corners of the planet. Project Loon hopes to accomplice this with the help of an extensive nexus of high-altitude balloons.
The head of Facebook’s Connectivity Lab and the company’s engineering director Yael Maguire told Reuters that a flight time of merely 30 minutes was expected from Aquila. He expressed that the team behind the drone is excited with the success of Aquila’s first test flight. He also mentioned that there are several technical hurdles to overcome in order to successfully implement the initiative, but he is positive that the service will be made available soon enough.
Some of the major challenges Aquila has to overcome is to shred enough weight for increased flight endurance, reach 60,000 feet and successfully establish an interconnection between each other to facilitate fast data transfer through precisely directed laser beams.
Facebook, the largest social networking platform in the world is spending billions of dollars to add more people to its register.
