BAE Systems PHASA-35
Electric aircraft
The BAE Systems Persistent High Altitude Solar Aircraft (PHASA-35) is a High-Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by BAE Systems in collaboration with Prismatic. Designed as a cheaper alternative to satellites, the aircraft can be used for surveillance, border control, communications and disaster relief with a potential ability to stay airborne for up to 12 months. Developed in less than two years, the aircraft carried out its first flight in February 2020 and further trials are currently ongoing.
Development
PHASA-35 was originally designed and developed by engineers who had previously worked on the Zephyr HAPS drone for Qinetiq. When Qinetiq sold Zephyr to Airbus Defence and Space in 2013, these engineers left and formed their own company, named Prismatic, to develop a rival aircraft. Development of PHASA-35 consequently began in 2018, in collaboration with BAE Systems, and a first flight was scheduled for 2019. Prior to this, a quarter-scale model, named the PHASE-8, completed a successful first flight in 2017. In September 2019, BAE Systems acquired Prismatic as a subsidiary. After less than two years in development, the PHASA-35 made its maiden flight on 17 February 2020 at the Woomera Test Range in Australia with support from the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and Australian Defence Science and Technology Group. Further trials commenced and, in October 2020, the aircraft carried out an endurance trial whilst carrying a sensor payload.
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This entry incorporates text from “BAE Systems PHASA-35” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.