{"id":172956,"date":"2016-07-22T09:57:35","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T07:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=172956"},"modified":"2016-07-22T09:59:13","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T07:59:13","slug":"facebooks-internet-drone-makes-first-test-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/172956-facebooks-internet-drone-makes-first-test-flight.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook’s Internet drone makes first test flight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook\u2019s Connectivity Lab announced<\/strong><\/a> the first full-scale test flight of Aquila, its high-altitude unmanned aircraft.<\/p>\n

Aquila is a solar-powered plane that can be used to bring Internet connectivity to people in the hardest-to-reach places.<\/p>\n

When complete, Aquila will be able to circle a region up to 60 miles in diameter, beaming connectivity down from an altitude of more than 60,000 feet using laser communications and millimeter wave systems.<\/p>\n

Aquila is designed to be efficient, so it can fly for up to three months at a time.<\/p>\n

The aircraft has the wingspan of an airliner, but at cruising speed it will consume 5,000 watts – the same amount of energy as a high-end microwave.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been flying a one-fifth scale version of Aquila for several months, but this was the first time we\u2019ve flown the full-scale aircraft,\u201d said Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis first functional check was a low-altitude flight, and it was so successful that we ended up flying Aquila for more than 90 minutes – three times longer than originally planned.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

More on Facebook<\/h3>\n

Facebook\u2019s solar-powered plane that beams down Internet connectivity<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s Mark Zuckerberg puts tape over his laptop camera<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Man pleads guilty to harassing women on Facebook<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook\u2019s Connectivity Lab has conducted the first full-scale test flight of Aquila, its high-altitude unmanned aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":172960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[36,31830,38164,161],"class_list":["post-172956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-active","tag-aquila","tag-connectivity-lab","tag-facebook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172956"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172992,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172956\/revisions\/172992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}