Sceye Completes Solar-Powered Stratosphere Flight

This is a critical milestone towards long-duration flights of months or years by using of solar power through daylight hours, and battery capacity enabling overnight flight through solar recharge the next morning.

August 21, 2024. By Abha Rustagi

Sceye, an aerospace company with a background in material science and manufacturer of High-Altitude Platform Systems (HAPS) has announced that it has completed a full diurnal flight in the stratosphere while staying over an area of operation.

This is a critical milestone towards long-duration flights of months or years by using of solar power through daylight hours, and battery capacity enabling overnight flight through solar recharge the next morning.

"This is a significant milestone for the Sceye team, towards opening up vast opportunities in the stratosphere, building an entirely new layer of infrastructure between drones and satellites," said Sceye CEO and Founder, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen. The ability to stay in the stratosphere for long durations over an area of operation offers a unique vantage point for detecting climate disasters in real time like wildfires and methane leaks, as well as connectivity to the billions of unconnected which conventional infrastructures cannot serve.

The launch furthered all key stratospheric objectives of the Sceye 2024 test program, including demonstrating diurnal flight, controlled relocation, and the ability to stay over an area of operation. The completion of these objectives will allow Sceye to initiate commercial use cases.

"The flight was an important demonstration of our platform's performance and resilience. I'm looking forward to seeing the growth and capabilities scale with every flight that follows," said Stephanie Luongo, Sceye Chief of Mission Operations.

Sceye has completed twenty test flights, with two additional test flights planned for 2024, further maturing the platform in preparation for commercialization.

The flight carried an advanced payload suite consisting of instruments for addressing some of humanity's most critical issues: stereo-optical cameras, for creating precise elevation models used to understand disasters such as floodings and earthquakes and how to mitigate them; infrared cameras to allow for prediction and detection of wildfires and to detect methane leaks in real-time, representing two significant sources of global warming.

Tags:

Solar PV

Solar Powered Flight

Solar power

High Altitude Platform Systems

HAPS

Sceye CEO

Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen