Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook’s solar-powered Internet plane Aquila has finally taken flight. In a video posted to his Facebook page, Zuckerberg introduced the 140-foot wingspan aircraft that is designed to provide Internet access to remote communities where internet signal is too weak.
Zuckerberg went on to post on his Facebook page August 19th, 2015, “Last month we completed Aquila, our unmanned aircraft that can beam internet connectivity from the sky to remote communities. Building Aquila meant solving a lot of engineering challenges. To design an aircraft that can fly 60,000 feet in the air for months at a time, we needed to make it extremely light and efficient. So we built the air frame from carbon fiber, which is stronger than steel but very light. Aquila has the wingspan of a 737 but weighs less than a car.”
“Here’s a photo of one of Aquila’s propellers, which is also made of carbon fiber. It’s optimized to convert electrical energy from our batteries into flight at altitudes almost twice as high as a passenger jet.”