There is a giant unmanned aerial vehicle under development in the United States that is designed to compete with satellites, flying at the edge of space.

Touted as the world’s first atmospheric satellite, the Solara 50 UAV has a wing span of almost 50 metres and carries 3,000 solar cells, which keep its lithium batteries charged and its motor and electronics operating.

Its developer Titan Aerospace boasts a ‘who’s who’ of aeronautical engineers, composite specialists and electronics experts, and is planning to have the first aircraft in operation next year.

Titan says the aircraft has the ability to replace satellites in a number of applications, as well as provide large-scale services where ground-based infrastructure struggles:

• The Solara can be equipped with GPS transmitters to provide regionally-defensible service in the event of a space denial conflict. The Solara is a fraction of the cost of other platforms and can be quickly assembled and launched, and can serve GPS signals with enhanced resolution capabilities at a safe distance from potential threats.
• Using full motion video, the Solara can send back high-resolution video of terrain and traffic patterns, and get an accurate mapping of the surrounding landscape. Because Solara is more accurate than GPS and has less chance of interference, the maps that are put together using this system are more accurate and highly detailed.
• In mobile communications, a Solara craft can provide coverage of over 17,800 square kilometres, with the reach of over one hundred ground-based mobile telephone towers.
• Other uses will include surveillance, asset tracking, live mapping, or the monitoring of crops, weather, disaster sites, or much anything else currently serviced by geostationary satellites.

There are currently two models on the drawing board, with the first one, the Solara 50, being able to carry an approx. 32kg payload, and the Solara 60 a 113kg one.

The Solara 50 is launched at night, using power from its battery banks to reach altitude. Once the sun rises, solar power then provides the energy for it to operate at  20km above the Earth’s surface – well above the weather

It is 15.5 metres long and has a wingspan of just under 50 metres, and cruises at around 104 kilometres an hour. It can closely monitor a 160km radius area, and over its designed lifetime of five years, potentially covering over 4 million kilometres.

So far reportedly there have been three orders placed for the aircraft, but neither the customer nor the selling price have been disclosed.