UAVOS Solar Plane ApusNeo Reaches 47,600 Feet Over Fuerteventura and Aims for 100-Hour Flight

UAVOS ApusNeo solar aircraft flight, Digi Mart USA News (Fuerteventura, Spain): A solar-powered aircraft with an 18-metre wingspan has spent time flying over the Spanish island of Fuerteventura, according to a report from New Atlas based on information from the company UAVOS. The company says its ApusNeo is the first solar plane to fly at 14,500 metres in European airspace.

The aircraft took off on October 16 from the Canarias Stratoport for HAPS and UAS at the Fuerteventura Technology Park and stayed airborne for 29 hours, climbing to 47,600 feet. UAVOS founder and CEO Aliaksei Stratsilatau told New Atlas the plane could have flown higher, and that the ceiling was set by the notices to airmen published for the flight, which Spain’s air navigation manager ENAIRE coordinated.

The same model previously flew from the stratoport in December for ISSEC, a Spanish research project examining how such platforms could send live data to emergency services, according to ENAIRE. In September, two flights from the same site lasted 29 and 52 hours nonstop, according to CATEC, the Andalusian aerospace centre that operates the aircraft.

According to UAVOS, the solar plane was back in the air at the time of the report, with more than 80 hours logged on that flight and 100 hours as the goal. Noticias Fuerteventura reported that it was cruising at around 9,100 metres, below its October altitude, and was expected to land at the technology park on Saturday.

The aircraft uses solar panels on its wing to power its motors and charge batteries during the day, then runs on stored battery power overnight. In theory it could stay aloft for weeks if days were long enough.

Its earlier prototype, ApusDuo, reached 16,686 metres in a 10.5-hour test in Rwanda in 2023, according to UAVOS.

On the recent flight the aircraft carried an Earth observation payload, a high-resolution camera plus infrared sensors. UAVOS sees wildfire monitoring as a possible use, since infrared sensors can detect heat rather than smoke.

However, the aircraft has not yet reached the 20 to 50 kilometre altitude range that the International Telecommunication Union defines for high-altitude platform stations, and the company has not said when a first wildfire-monitoring mission will take place.