Facebook scraps plans to build drone to deliver internet Access
Facebook is scrapping its plans to build a high-altitude solar-powered drone that would have delivered internet access to the developing world.
The drone, named Aquila by the company, was initially created by British aerospace engineer Andrew Cox, whose company Ascenta was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $20m (£15m). It was folded into Facebook’s Internet.org project, which had a stated goal of “connecting the whole world”, and was intended to be used to fly at a higher altitude than commercial planes, relaying laser-based internet signals down to base-stations on the ground.
Now, however, Facebook says it will no longer design and construct its own aircraft. Yael Maguire, the company’s director of engineering, said that the decision was prompted by the growing interest in the field from aerospace companies, which left Facebook’s own efforts superfluous.
“Going forward, we’ll continue to work with partners like Airbus on Haps [high altitude platform station] connectivity generally, and on the other technologies needed to make this system work, like flight control computers and high-density batteries,” Maguire wrote in a blogpost announcing the closure of the Bridgwater facility, where Aquila was built.
The announcement comes a day after a report from Business Insider revealing that Cox had left Facebook in May.
Aquila’s history at Facebook was mixed. Maguire touts successes including “two successful full-scale test flights”, and “setting new records using millimeter-wave (MMW) technology in air-to-ground and point-to-point communication,” but the drone project also resulted in criticism for the company, which was accused of covering up a crash at the end of a test flight which the company had previously told reporters was successful.
The closure of Aquila comes following a number of setbacks for the programmes it was supposed to support, Internet.org and Free Basics. The former, a philanthropic mission to bring internet access to the “next billion”, currently cut off from the web, saw its role at the company diminished when Free Basics, the Facebook-branded service that actually provided free internet to millions, was spun off and renamed in 2015.
Then, last year, Free Basics itself was hit by the growing concerns around Facebook’s role in the media ecosystem of unstable democracies: the company pulled its free internet access from countries including El Salvador and Papua New Guinea. Most notably, Facebook also pulled Free Basics from Myanmar in September, where the company has been accused of enabling ethnic cleansing of the nation’s Rohingya minority.
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