http://9jaflave..com/2013/10/solar-powered-drone-that-can-fly-at-65000-feet-for-5-years-solara.html

An American aerospace company has developed a light-weight solar-powered drone that can fly at 65,000 feet for 5 years.

The Solara series, the largest of which measures 60 metres wide, are classed as a 'High Altitude Long Endurance solar atmospheric satellites capable of carrying telecom, reconnaissance and atmospheric sensors.'

The Solara aircraft is self-sufficient - it is covered in around 3,000 solar panels producing about 7 kW of electricity - it will fly above the clouds, so it would be exposed to sunlight constantly during daylight hours and store energy for the night flight.

Cruising speed for the Solara is about 65 mph, and the unmanned craft will have an operating range of over 2.8 million miles.

The largest plane Texas-based company Titan Aerospace plan to build, is the Solara 60, which could carry up to 250 pounds of payload, such as anything from signals intelligence gear or electro-optical sensors to communications equipment.

The Solara 50 and Solara 60 will be launched with a catapult, according to Flight Daily website.

They are designed to be cheaper than the cost of a satellite, while carrying out similar functions such as surveillance, crop-monitoring, weather and disaster oversight, or any other monitoring that low-altitude satellites track.

One is scheduled for completion next year and could cost less than $2 million, according to Forbes.
Titan’s website says it has orders for three of the Solara 50s and one of the Solara 60s. Go to link below for more

http://9jaflave..com/2013/10/solar-powered-drone-that-can-fly-at-65000-feet-for-5-years-solara.html

dats a low altitude spying craft for US Army!