About a year ago, Facebook announced its creation of an unmanned plane to serve as a flying internet hub that will provide internet access to remote parts of the world where there's no internet connectivity.
On June 28, the 140-foot, solar-powered, unmanned plane "Aquila" had its first flight from a military testing facility in Yuma, Arizona, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg on-hands at the command center. The video was shared by Facebook on Thursday, July 21.
The video, which at the time of writing has been viewed over 8.9 million times and shared by more than 30,000 users, shows the plane being pulled on a runway by what appears to be a military Humvee. Upon reaching the necessary speed for a take off, the straps holding Aquila were cut and the plane took off.
Aquila's first inaugural flight lasted for 96 minutes and reached a maximum altitude of 2,150 feet. Facebook says these planes will eventually fly for months between 60,000 and 90,000 feet above sea level.
The creation of the plane adheres to Facebook's core mission: "to connect everyone in the world." The planes are intended to provide internet access to rural areas where connectivity is weak or totally unavailable.
According to Facebook, the network of planes will "beam internet signals" between one another and then down to people on the ground within a 60-mile diameter.
Running on solar power, the planes will naturally charge during daytime and use the charged energy to stay above the ground at night. Facebook says the amount of battery needed to stay aloft at 60,000 feet is "about as much as three hair dryers" or approximately 5,000 watts.
The social media company also says that it has been testing "1/5th scale airplane for several months" somewhere in Oregon.
Facebook previously announced that it has no interest in selling the planes or becoming a network provider.
Facebook shared the same vision of providing internet access from the sky with Google, but instead of planes, the search engine company will be using giant balloons.
Here's the video:
Source: Recode
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