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Facebook Cancels Program To Deliver Internet By Aquila Drones (ieee.org)

Wave723 shares a report from IEEE Spectrum: Facebook's plans to beam high-speed Internet from enormous solar-powered drones in the stratosphere appear to be in disarray. Two key engineers behind its Aquila drones have left the company, and it recently cancelled plans for a secret high-altitude flight campaign at Spaceport America, possibly because Facebook no longer has any aircraft available to deploy.

A trove of emails between Facebook and Spaceport America, obtained under New Mexico public records law and first reported by Business Insider, details the painstaking process of turning a site for rockets and spaceplanes into a testbed for some of the largest drones in the world.

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  1. SubjectIsSubject by p0p0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "The humans have become aware of our data collection techniques. We must put on hold our attempts to contact the mothership."
    - Mark "definitely not a space lizard" Zuckerberg