Meet Facebook’s Stratospheric Internet Drone

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Meet Facebook’s Stratospheric Internet Drone

By: Tom Simonite

Narrated by: Elizabeth Wells

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Facebook has built the first of what it hopes will be a large fleet of solar-powered drones that will bring Internet connectivity to hundreds of millions of people beyond the reach of today's telecommunications infrastructure. Aquila, as the V-shaped carbon fiber craft is known, is powered by two propellers and has a wingspan of about 42 meters, roughly equivalent to a Boeing 737 airliner. When covered in solar panels and loaded with communications gear needed to beam down wireless Internet connectivity, it should weigh only a little over 400 kilograms (about 900 pounds) - roughly one third of a Toyota Prius.©2015 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Tom SimoniteElizabeth WellsMIT Technology Review

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