Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company's solar-powered drone has completed a successful test flight.

 

Facebook总裁马克·扎克伯格表示，该公司的太阳能无人机已成功完成试飞。
 

 

Zuckerberg posted on his Facebook page that the 'Aquila' flew at a high altitude for 96 minutes in Yuma, Arizona. 

 

Aquila is Facebook's first step in sending a fleet of drones that can fly for at least three months and create communication networks to deliver internet access. 

 

The company's chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer says they will build on Aquila's success to achieve their ultimate goal. 

 

"The idea of this is to loiter around an area at very high altitude, 60 to 90 thousand feet in the air, stand on station for months at a time and beam down backbone¹ internet access. From this photo it's hard to get a sense of scale and this is an early prototype for testing out the aerodynamics. To give you a sense of the scale of this thing, this is us actually constructing the full scale version.

 

Aquila will go through several more test flights. Facebook hopes it will soon break the world record for the longest solar-powered unmanned aircraft flight, which currently stands at two weeks.

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