16 hours ago
Aviation company unveils massive aircraft that can fly for month straight without landing: 'Changes the paradigm'
According to Interesting Engineering, French defense company Thales has partnered with Skydweller Aero to launch a solar-powered drone with a massive wingspan that's wider than a Boeing 747.
The company says this thing can soar for up to a month without having to refuel — and has already completed a test with the U.S. Navy for three days straight. There are no emissions. Zero noise. Just sun-powered flight over busy maritime areas like the Pacific or Mediterranean.
They're calling it MAPS, short for Medium-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite. That might sound dense, but it boils down to this: long-haul air surveillance without the carbon guilt or maintenance bills of traditional planes.
Here's the cool part: The drone is fitted with Thales' AirMaster S radar, a lightweight, AI-driven sensor that doesn't just detect movement; it thinks.
It figures out what it's looking at, classifies targets, and only sends the important stuff back to ground teams. That means less data noise, faster reactions, and way less bandwidth strain.
It may not look that special at first glance. Just a plain-looking, long-winged jumbo drone.
But for anyone living near a coastline, this innovative new quiet aircraft could soon be the reason you can breathe and sleep more easily. It doesn't burn any fuel. Doesn't need a pilot. And it can fly for weeks at a time without landing.
Sébastien Renouard, Thales' chief commercial officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa, said, "The combination of Thales' AirMaster S Smart Radar with the MAPS Skydweller changes the paradigm for surveillance missions."
That pairing allows for what experts call ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) over dangerous areas without putting human pilots at risk.
The drone's long airtime and quiet presence make it a solid match for patrolling shipping routes, tracking smuggling operations, or even helping during disaster response.
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Unlike gas-guzzling surveillance planes, Skydweller runs only on solar energy and stores it in onboard batteries. That alone slashes the cost and carbon footprint of each flight.
This tech could eventually help reduce pollution-related respiratory issues in port cities, trim down expensive patrol flights, and create faster alerts for threats at sea. That's not just smart; it's practical. Skydweller's fully autonomous solar aircraft has already completed solo test flights, and now the team is working with the U.S. Navy on deployment plans.
The Army, meanwhile, has its own solar-powered drones, the Kraus Hamdani Aerospace K1000 Ultra Long-Endurance, with its stock of them worth about $20 million total.
If this system rolls out soon, maritime surveillance might get a lot cleaner — and a lot cheaper.
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