Flying with the sun

Many of you maybe aware of the Solar Impulse planes . Solar Impulse-1 has already flown across Europe and from the east cost to the West Coast of the US. The next version of Solar Impulse , Solar Impulse -2(SI-2) has started its flight, that would encircle the entire world from Abu Dhabi, UAE on 9th March 2015.

It travelled from Abu Dhabi to Muscat, from Muscat(Oman) to Ahmedabad(India) , from Ahmedabad to Varanasi(India) and then to Mandalay(Burma) and is finally at Chongquing(China). The Solar Impulse planes are powered by the Sun. Its wings comprises of solar panels that generates the electricity that fuels the airplane. No other source of energy is used other than solar energy.

In a similar way Google and Facebook plans to use solar drones which are similar to these planes except for the fact that they will be unmanned. They will stay airborne for long periods of time, for months maybe years. 

The drones will be stationed at Stratosphere i.e - 20 kilometres above the surface of the earth. The would be used to beam Internet across the world. According to Google Loons website each drone or balloon(Google originally planned to use atmoshperic  balloons for this project) can provide Internet access to an area of diameter 40 kms. 

This drones will save the cost of lying fibre optic cables which is quite expensive and because of them , we can have access to Internet even in obscure places of the planet. Say in the jungles of Amazon, or in the mountains of Himalayas. 

People can actually stay in these places located far away and difficult to reach but still have access to all the information thanks to availability of affordable Internet. 

The combination of  solar power , Internet access will encourage people to move out of cities and live in more relaxing places that are located closer to nature. 

Flying without fossil fuel

This are the pictures of Solar Impulse 2 the plane that flies on solar power generated from the 17000 odd solar panels that are spread across its wings and body. The wingspan is 72 meters. The solar impulse 2 is set to circumnavigate the earth in  2015 .

       The earlier version Solar Impulse successfully flew across US east cost to west cost.  This would be a single seater plane. The beauty of this plane is it would not require any fossil fuel to fly all the energy will  be drawn from the sun and also a good part of the energy would be stored in the batteries to fly in the night .

          The entire plane is made from carbon fibre and it weighs around 2300 kgs which is equivalent to that of a family car.

Salora unmanned drone of Titan Aerospace

          Google recently acquired a company called Titan Aerospace that makes lightweight drones that are similar to this planes of course the drones are unmanned and this drones can be airborne for at least 5 years at a stretch thus acting as an atmospheric satellite. Google would use this drones in its ambitious loons project which aims to provide affordable Internet connectivity to places where people have no Internet access. 

        This drones and airplanes mark a new era of satellites and planes. Surely the solar drones can act as excellent low altitude surveillance , communication and mapping systems , they will be cheaper than space satellites.

        One can have thousands of this drones circling a particular area around the world to provide Internet access in those parts .

         An entire global communication network of this wireless drones can be made that would make Internet affordable and available across the globe to every person on earth.