Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday proclaimed the successful test of a wide-winged, solar-powered drone built to deliver wireless internet service to remote spots.
The test flight of a drone prototype dubbed “Aquila” took place in Britain and was considered a milestone in an internet.org project to bring online access to billions more people around the planet.
“Aircraft like these will help connect the whole world because they can affordably serve the 10 percent of the world’s population that live in remote communities without existing Internet infrastructure,” Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook timeline.
The unpiloted aerial vehicle, or drone, has a wingspan greater than that of a Boeing 737 passenger jet and weighs about as much as a small car, Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer told a packed audience at the social network’s annual gathering of developers in San Francisco.
“The idea is to loiter over an area for months at a time and beam down Internet service,” Schroepfer said.
Drones powered by the sun will fly at altitudes of 60,000 feet or higher and be able to remain aloft for months, according to Zuckerberg.
Schroepfer estimated that anywhere from one billion to three billion people lack access to the Internet that most of those attending the developers conference likely took for granted.
Connecting everyone to the Internet is one of the core challenges Facebook intends to tackle in coming years, according to Schroepfer.
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