The Airbus Zephyr S completed yet another successful test flight campaign in 2021. The aircraft consists of a high altitude solar powered platform (HAPS), performed a flight campaign on September 13 from the state of Arizona, in the United States.
The flight campaign had sought to assess how Zephyr could be used in future operations, when flying outside restricted airspace and over airspace shared with commercial air traffic. The aircraft features an Advanced Earth Observation Optical System for Zephyr Payload (OPAZ). In addition, the Zephyr flight also served to assess its instantaneous, persistent and improved situational awareness.
The campaign consisted of six flights in total, four low-level test flights and two stratospheric flights. The stratospheric flights lasted an average of 18 days each, totaling more than 36 days of stratospheric flight in the campaign. This adds an additional 887 flight hours to the stratospheric 2.435 flight hours for Zephyr to date, marking significant progress for the fixed-wing HAPS.
Interestingly, the Zephyr uses sunlight to fly and recharge its batteries, forgoing the use of fuel and producing no carbon emissions. Such an innovative and potentially transformative capability is part of Airbus' plans to move quickly to high-altitude operations.
Capable of remaining in the stratosphere for months, Zephyr will bring new observation and connection capabilities to commercial and military customers. Zephyr could in the future manage disaster management, including monitoring the spread of wildfires or oil spills.
The solar plane also provides persistent surveillance, charting the world's changing environmental landscape, while being able to provide communications to the most uninhabited parts of the world.
Via: Airbus
