Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg announced Thursday his social networking company just finished building an unmanned aerial system that can “beam down Internet connectivity from the sky.”It’s called Aquila, and demonstrates not only solar-powered flight, but a new way to connect to the Internet.The project is part of Internet.org, whose mission is to get the Web to those who don’t have access to it. Ten percent of people in the world live in areas that lack an infrastructure to connect, according to Facebook, and a high-flying airplane equipped with laser transmitters can provide that connectivity with speed and economy.
“It has the wingspan of a Boeing 737, but weighs less than a car and can stay in the air for months at a time,” Zuckerberg said of Aquila. Facebook will soon begin testing the aircraft and its systems. According to Facebook’s video on the project, it can fly at least 60,000 feet high and is designed to remain aloft for up to three months. The boomerang-shaped, carbon-fiber aircraft would receive a radio signal from a ground station and transmit to other like aircraft via lasers, which would then broadcast Wi-Fi signals to the ground. A Wall Street Journal blog reported that to help build the aircraft, Facebook had acquired a U.K. company that had been developing solar-powered UAS technology.
