In a blog post named “High altitude connectivity,” Facebook has officially scrapped its enormous and long invested Aquilla drone project–an initiative launched by Facebook back in 2014, to provide accessible Internet to the undeveloped areas of the world
The solar-powered drones were intended to remain high up in the air between 60,000 to 90,000 feet, each drone circling in a 3-mile radius, commandeered to blast lasers of the Internet spectrum and deliver high-speed data. The project was a subsidiary of Facebook Internet for All initiative under Internet.org.
“As we’ve worked on these efforts, it’s been exciting to see leading companies in the aerospace industry start investing in this technology too. Given these developments, we’ve decided not to design or build our own aircraft any longer, and to close our facility in Bridgwater,” writes Yael Maguire, Engineering director at Facebook.
The company also said it will continue to work in its high altitude platform system a.k.a HAPS which beam down Internet via systems installed in aircraft.
Facebook has also confirmed that it will continue to work in developing next-generation technologies like Terragraph, new infrastructure builds like fiber project in Uganda, and another project called Express WiFi to support entrepreneurs who work in connecting people who don’t have access to the Internet.
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