http://www.gizmag.com/auroras-radical-odysseus-solar-powered-aircraft-unveiled/9261/

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Link: Odysseus: Aurora’s radical, unlimited endurance, solar powered aircraft.

(…) Designed to fly in the stratosphere, (((okay, that’s plenty weird right there))) Odysseus will be used for surveillance and reconnaissance, communications relay and environmental monitoring with the potential for roles in global climate change research and regional-scale telecommunications. Each autonomous section of the plane has three high efficiency electric brushless motors turning Low Reynolds number propellers giving the aircraft the ability to cruise at 63 m/s during daytime and 45 m/s during nighttime and carry a payload of 500kg. The onboard batteries are designed to be recharged each day via double sided cells optimized for energy collection efficiency at high latitudes, and adding to the redundancy built in to the plane’s architecture, Odysseus’ electronics are adapted from spacecraft designs which have already proven their reliability in missions lasting several years….

(((Maybe I’ll live long enough to see a stratosphere infested with these things…

flying autonomous self-folding origami solar-powered coffee-tables. So that I can, you know, make a few phone calls.)))

(((Also — can I have my future wind turbines shaped like the fins of extinct whales?)))

http://www.whalepower.com/drupal/