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Facebook’s internet plane has the wingspan of a 737 and flies up to 3 months

By Alvin Soon - on 31 Jul 2015, 11:11am

Facebook’s internet plane has the wingspan of a 737 and flies up to 3 months

If you thought Google’s plan to provide free internet using balloons sounded crazy, take a look at what Facebook is cooking.

Facebook announced today that they’ve completed construction of their first full-scale aircraft, Aquila, which will provide free internet through the air. Aquila is big, it has the wingspan of a Boeing 737, but weighs less than a car, thanks to lightweight materials like carbon fibre. It’s solar-powered, which lets Aquila stay in the air for up to 90 days at a time. It also looks quite like a Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.

When launched, Aquila will beam internet connection down from the sky at an altitude of 60,000 to 90,000 feet. That means it’ll be flying higher than commercial planes, and even higher than the Earth’s weather.

What already sounds like the stuff of science fiction gets even more science fiction-ly when you hear about how Aquila navigates. There will be lasers on the ground that can locate Aquila’s optical head, on the bottom of the plane, while it’s in the air. 

This is like, as an engineer explains in Facebook’s introduction video, shooting a laser at a dime-sized target more than 10 miles away. Aquila then locks onto the laser’s location, and will then beam internet connectivity down at 10 gigabits per second.

Aquila is part of Facebook’s Internet.org project to bring affordable internet access to less developed countries. Facebook will be testing Aquila out in the real world over the next few months.

Sources: Facebook, The Verge.

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