The British have created and tested a new, unmanned spy plane, effectively a drone, with some extraordinarily interesting engineering that could have multiple applications, replacing many of the current satellite functions at a much lower cost, but also providing internet connection in areas of interest or monitoring these areas. The new plane flies at stratospheric altitudes and, paradoxically, it’s an electric airplane, but it has a range of several months!
The plane is unusual in size and appearance. It has an unusually large wingspan of just 35 meters, much greater than its overall length. This size gives it the name PHASA 35, where PHASA is short for Persistent High Altitude Solar Aircraft. Of course, the name also gives us the first clue as to how it was possible to achieve several weeks of autonomous flight – with solar power. And that explains why the wings had to be so large – on the one hand, to provide more surface area for the solar panels placed there, and on the other hand, because the air in the stratosphere is thinner and the wings of normal size no longer provide enough lift.
So the basic idea of using the sun’s energy with solar panels is reminiscent of the blimp we talked about in yesterday’s article, which wants to circumnavigate the world. Except there’s also a hydrogen plant there to store energy for the dark times. But there’s no such installation on the new British plane – lithium-ion batteries instead!
Yes, it’s the same lithium-ion battery technology that we know from electric cars, and here they’ll reach over 20km in altitude, up to 40-50km. Knowing that at an altitude of 10 km above sea level, temperatures already reach -55 degrees Celsius, one might wonder how these batteries will perform even higher up? But the fact is that the temperature doesn’t drop very much higher, on the contrary, at over 20 km it starts to climb back up, so at operational altitude the batteries will be less stressed. And the creator and supplier of these batteries is BAE Systems, the same company that will also supply batteries for the Heart ES-30 electric Heart ES-30, which will be the world’s first electric airliner to carry passengers on a scheduled flight, about which we previously published a detailed engineering video.
Basically, the entire airplane we’re talking about today was created by BAE Systems and its subsidiary Prismatic. BAE have immense experience in aviation, defense and strategic communications technologies, so the new aircraft is a product that incorporates exactly these skills and is designed to give a future strategic advantage in both intelligence, communications and technology.
The plane is super light, weighing in at just 150 kg, and has a payload of 15 kg. It has two electric motors. And it takes off, leaving its undercarriage on the runway. It climbs to the top, where it can stabilize at an extremely low speed. So small that it can appear to be flying in reverse, becoming almost geostatic, i.e. following the natural motion of the earth, almost fixed above a point of interest on earth.
At that stratospheric altitude, very little energy is needed to adjust the propulsion functions, so the airplane manages to generate the necessary electricity with panels, squeezing the surplus into batteries. Since the total weight is just 150 kg, including the carbon-fiber fuselage, it’s clear that the lithium-ion batteries are relatively small and light.
What can the new PHASA-35 do? It can be a spy plane, effectively filming, photographing and transmitting ultra-high resolution images, with 5G transmission technology on board. The engineers who created it say the plane’s resolution and capabilities are far superior to current satellites, including a larger on-board power source that can power more powerful video and photo capture technology. And since the drone can hover over a point for months, it can be trained to monitor suspicious troop movements, for example, and anything else you want. It can also be moved to another location at any time and can also operate in a group, with task distribution in teams.
The advantage over regular satellites is not just in the performance of the on-board technology, but also in the cost of launching into space, which is tiny compared to launching satellites. Satellites require Space X-like launches that release satellites into the desired orbits. And even though Space X has substantially reduced costs compared to previous single-use rockets, launching a satellite is still an expensive mission. But here, the drone takes off and reaches the stratosphere on its own, without the need for a rocket.
Being stationed in the stratosphere will make it relatively invisible and immune to attempts to shoot it down. And while it has such sophisticated technology for receiving and transmitting data at 5G speeds, the last and perhaps most important effect the Brits want is that the new drone will be able to work in groups to provide internet connectivity for a key area for defense purposes. And here we think back to Space X’s Starlink and see that the new drone will do essentially the same thing, at much higher speed, with dedicated coverage for security purposes, for example. Why would the British or any country need one? It’s simple, so that you’re not at the mercy of whoever holds the keys to Starlink’s internet today. The war in the neighboring country has shown how important it is to secure the encrypted Starlink connection in the face of GPS jamming and the lack of another data connection, but it has also shown how the success or failure of a country-wide operation can depend on the will or hesitation of one man, Elon Musk. And a country, or group of countries, cannot allow the fate of such technologies to be left to the decisions of one man. So one of the functions of the new drone is to provide an alternative to such situations.
The drone has already been tested in June 2023, taking off and reaching an altitude of 29.7 km, operating successfully and returning back to earth. BAE Systems has now been given the green light for the next phase of the project, which will see it produce 4 advanced test drones, followed by series production.