AeroVironment has announced that on Sept. 11, the HAWK30 solar HAPS UAS successfully completed its first flight at the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in California.

Funding for the design development and demonstration of the UAS comes from HAPSMobile Inc., which is a joint venture created by AeroVironment and SoftBank Corp.

“The first flight of HAWK30 builds on more than two decades of pioneering HAPS technology development and demonstration by the AeroVironment team, and comes only two years since SoftBank joined us in this endeavor,” says Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment president and chief executive officer.

“We are the pioneer and leader in HAPS, delivering continued progress and demonstrated success. We look forward to achieving even greater success in flight testing, culminating in high-altitude, long-endurance flight demonstrations that will pave the way for the global commercialization of HAPS technology.”

The HAWK30 was developed and assembled in AeroVironment’s HAPS Innovation Center. Featuring a wingspan of approximately 260 feet, the UAS is propelled by 10 electric motors powered by solar panels covering the surface of the wing, which results in zero emissions.

Capable of flying at an altitude of approximately 65,000 feet above sea level and above the clouds, the HAWK30 is designed to conduct continuous, extended missions of up to months without landing.

AeroVironment says that it “seeks to create value from its unique HAPS intellectual property and capabilities” in a variety of ways, including but not limited to, “manufacturing and supplying HAPS UAS to HAPSMobile; generating customer-funded research and development revenue as the exclusive developer of solar HAPS for HAPSMobile through the design, development and demonstration phases of the program; and supporting and maintaining a deployed fleet of HAPS systems.”

AeroVironment has been working on the concept of high-altitude solar-powered UAS for decades, as it developed and demonstrated several systems for NASA’s Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In August 2001, the AeroVironment Helios prototype reached an altitude of 96,863 feet, which set the world-record for sustained horizontal flight by a winged aircraft.

The following year, the AeroVironment Pathfinder Plus prototype performed what the company says was the “world’s first UAS telecommunications demonstrations” at 65,000 feet by providing high-definition television (HDTV) signals, third-generation (3G) mobile voice, video and data and high-speed internet connectivity.