to-the-point: Aurora to fly Odysseus solar HAPS in spring of 2019

Aurora Flight Sciences, a Boeing Co (NYSE:BA) company, on Wednesday said the first flight of its solar-powered autonomous aircraft Odysseus is planned for the spring of 2019.

Odysseus is an ultra-long endurance, high-altitude platform built using advanced solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and and lightweight materials. It can support climate and atmospheric research and also a range of missions and operations across communication, connectivity, and intelligence.

Aurora says the high-altitude pseudo-satellite (HAPS) can be deployed “at a fraction of the cost of a satellite”. It also beats conventional unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in terms of the period of time it is able to remain in the sky.

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