Facebook has unveiled its high-altitude drones for the first time, revealing the unmanned aircrafts have a wingspan to rival a Boeing 737.
At the organisation's F8 developer conference today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a about the crafts, designed to stay aloft for months at a time and beam internet access to remote sections of the world.
"As part of our Internet.org effort to connect the world, we've designed unmanned aircraft that can beam internet access down to people from the sky," he wrote. "Today, I'm excited to share that we've successfully completed our first test flight of these aircraft in the UK.
"The final design will have a wingspan greater than a Boeing 737 but will weigh less than a car. It will be powered by solar panels on its wings and it will be able to stay at altitudes of more than 60,000 feet for months at a time.
"Aircraft like these will help connect the whole world because they can affordably serve the 10% of the world's population that live in remote communities without existing internet infrastructure."
The drones are built by Ascenta, a solar-powered drone manufacturer Facebook bought last year for $20 million. Facebook is one of the first companies to reveal its hand in this space since rumours began circulating it was last year. Google is believed to be .
A keynote speech about Facebook's future plans in the drone space is taking place today at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 5pm GMT. We'll have more information on that as it happens.