Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 206 posts

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#142

Post by jthomaslm »

siliconsorcerer wrote: post #13

Very cool idea. As far as applications, I love the idea of this being a lower cost / higher resolution version of satellite imaging, think Ororatec, Planet, Spire etc.

Absolutely, we think there are some really interesting use cases around imagery too - for exactly these reasons.

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#143

Post by jthomaslm »

randomh3r0 wrote: post #77

I used to work on a platform like this and loved the challenges. Followed you all on LinkedIn!

Thanks - feel free to reach out if you have any lessons learned you think we should know about! Being a student of history is important for a project like this!

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#144

Post by placesalt »

cyrieln wrote: post #125
mNovak wrote: post #72

How much power and weight budget will you have for payloads? I work with a startup that's developing tech for very low power consumption RF beamforming; I think HALE applications seems like a natural fit. Feel free to DM if you want to chat.

Sounds awesome! Would love to chat, email in bio.

What about the power/weight budget, esp. for the 110 ft. wingspan aircraft mentioned above?

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#146

Post by jthomaslm »

jrmylee wrote: post #8

this looks amazing. Particularly hopeful/interested if this could be used for wildfire prevention. Great work!

Thanks, wildfires inspired us to work on this technology, so we're excited to see it used in those applications too!

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#147

Post by Tossrock »

placesalt wrote: post #139
sroussey wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are commercial sats doing this.

Not live at that resolution, AFAIK. Planet has the spatial resolution but not the temporal resolution. NOAA has the temporal resolution but not the spatial resolution. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Planet has sub 10-cm resolution? That's surprising

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#148

Post by jthomaslm »

thadjones wrote: post #124

Very cool, glad to see interest in this space. How does this differ from SkyDweller?

Our aim is to fly at higher altitudes than Solar Impulse/SkyDweller, which keeps us above the turbulent winds and cloud cover of the troposphere, and makes long endurance flight more reliable/less weather dependent. Our platform is also a lot smaller than SkyDweller, which helps keep costs much lower and opens some interesting new opportunities - for example, deploying lots of aircraft in a mesh network.

The Solar Impulse/SkyDweller lineage is very inspiring - what an amazing way to demonstrate how much you can do with solar power!

Re: Launch HN: Radical (YC W23) – Autonomous high-altitude solar aircraft

#150

Post by placesalt »

Tossrock wrote: post #147
placesalt wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not live at that resolution, AFAIK. Planet has the spatial resolution but not the temporal resolution. NOAA has the temporal resolution but not the spatial resolution. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Planet has sub 10-cm resolution? That's surprising

50cm, not 10cm, but enough.

TBH I thought they had 15cm, but for human-scale large object monitoring (fires, traffic, construction) 50cm is enough.

Post reply on HN