In 2010 Boeing won an $89 million government contract to build and fly an unmanned solar-powered plane that can--eventually--stay aloft continuously for up to five years.
The defense contractor is developing the Solar Eagle aircraft for the Vulture II program run by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA. Scheduled to get off the ground for its first demo flight in 2014, the plane will likely serve as an electronic sensor and military communications platform. But it could eventually turn into a less expensive alternative to communications and reconnaissance satellites.
The rest of this 2010 article
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