61–70 of 220 posts
What's the benefit over something like a weather balloon? Pretty interesting thought, tape a few hundred micro SD cards to it and you've got some impressive bandwidth.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
These planes can compete with Starlink in certain scenarios, for example you can launch them in the event of floods that knock out the regular telecommunications infrastructure.
With Starlink soon having ~global coverage, why bother transporting, launching and servicing these aircraft for a one time thing? I don't see the benefit. Will also be really hard to reach low prices for end user terminals with this approach. Very high quality visual/signals surveillance seems like a much more obvious market fit.
Second, all you have to do is make these aircraft compatible with cell phones. So your target population already has "end user terminals" literally in hand.
Third, this is not a one-time need. Local disasters happen fairly regularly, and sometimes can be predicted in advance. (For example hurricanes.) There is real value to an instant telecommunications network that can be deployed on short notice.
Now I don't claim that this is actually economically viable. But it is not exactly crazy, either.
1: https://www.engineering.com/story/how-the-worlds-first-solid...
Probably/unfortunately not really a Starlink competitor, right? They don't specify the "cruising" altitude, but I assume it's ~10 kilometers at most, probably less? Airbus would need quite a few of these in order to build a global internet connectivity service then. Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Zephyr says ~20 km. Starlink sats (will) operate at ~540-570 km: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/29/spacex-…
The U2 operated at over 20km, so maybe the altitude is higher. I suspect the greater issue is vehicle cost, lifetime, and safety. A starlink satellite is much smaller (and as result cheaper) and is rumored to have a 5+ year lifetime. Also, at end of life it burns up in the atmosphere. No worry about pushing the life on a component and having it crash and kill someone as a result.
I'm assuming the flights were achieved mid summer when they days are longest and it can't yet operate outside this window. If this is the case, shame they don't just admit this up front
Perhaps they are aware of eatrh's axis and will move operations to the southern hemisphere? Or adjust the drone's speed to stay in sunlight?
Depending on altitude, that would require an awfully fast aircraft.
Complete outsider doubt: Does this has the potential to replace satellites? Or, why did google project loon failed?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why wouldn't you use the wind energy also? It's a lot of fun, readily available and a lot cheaper…
Sails have several major downsides, most notably they take up a lot of deck space and cause a boat to tilt to the side. If you’re regularly sailing long distances it’s much faster but top speed isn’t that big of a deal when your living on the boat full time. Other options like kites and wind turbines can work well but they all all significant upfront costs as well as ongoing maintenance issues. Spending that same mon…
If you're living on your boat 365 then I imagine avoiding severe weather becomes more important?
They're hoping to get six months flight eventually out of a propeller craft. I can't help but wonder what we could eventually get out of a solid state craft.[1] They mention batteries in this article when referencing that six months target, but I have to assume servicing the propellers is important as well. 1: https://www.engineering.com/story/how-the-worlds-first-solid...