The Zephyr solar plane nearly makes landing optional

The British Defense Ministry and the Pentagon are working together to develop a solar plane that can stay airborne for months rather than days. It’s called the Zephyr, and it’s finishing a test flight this Friday that will have lasted 2 weeks. The military often drives technology innovation and in this case it seems that green tech is no exception.

Primarily the Zephyr is intended for long term surveillance because it has no need to land – that allows it keep a continuous stream of intelligence flowing while staying safe from attack at a high altitude. Thin silicon solar arrays are attached to the top of 74-foot wings to power the Zephyr’s lithium-sulfur batteries. Overall it ways less than most humans at 110lbs, so carrying much of an additional payload is out of scope at this point.

Landing safely this Friday will net the Zephyr a new world record as the having the longest duration unmanned flight. Right now the official world record is “30 hours 24 minutes set by Northrop Grumman's RQ-4A Global Hawk on 22 March 2001,” according to QinetiQ’s press release.

Uncannily like a toy plane, the Zephyr is launched by hand and is 50% larger than its predecessor.

The current goal is to fly for a further week and prove Zephyr is the world's first truly eternal plane, capable of providing a low-cost, persistent surveillance capability over months rather than days. Potential applications include earth observation and communications relay in support of a range of defense, security and commercial requirements.

While surveillance is certainly useful for the military, this sort of power structure and design could possibly be integrated into a commercialized setting in phases. Right now it the solar power output isn’t nearly enough to support the kind of weight a commercial airplane would, but power for personal flight is a whole other option.