Kea Aerospace aiming to fly from roof rack to the stratosphere

Expecting to fly: Kea Aerospace's solar-powered plane sitting on its booster vehicle. (Image: Kea Aerospace)

Thu, 13 Apr 2023

The Christchurch-based company Kea Aerospace is going stratospheric with plans to fly unmanned high-altitude solar aircraft for up to months at a time.Low-altitude test flights have been ongoing this year, with one every few weeks. The Kea Atmos Mk I is designed for short-duration flights in the stratosphere and its first high-altitude tests of up to 15 kilometres is planned for later this year from Kaitorete Spit south of Christchurch.It's the first solar-powered stratospheric designed plane which is also built in the southern hemisphere....

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