Google shut down solar internet drone project Titan!! WHY?

Google has scrapped its ambitious attempt to beam internet from solar powered drones as the Google X team announced that it has closed Project Titan due to technical difficulties and funding.

Google commenced its futuristic internet drone project named Titan in 2015 and it offered to provide free internet to remote rural areas, supplementing to the existing Loon project of Google.

Unfortunately, Google says, it can no longer go ahead with the project as the vehicle faced frequent technical difficulties and funding challenges.

According to the report published by 9to5Google, the search engine giant pulled the plug of the Titan project in early 2016.

The same has been confirmed by the X team in Google that managed the Titan project.

“Titan was brought into X in late 2015. We ended our exploration of high altitude unmanned aerial vehicles for internet access shortly after,” it said.

“By comparison, at this stage, the economics and technical feasibility of Project Loon present a much more promising way to connect rural and remote parts of the world,” he added.

Titan Aerospace, which was an independent research and development firm was acquired by Google in 2014 in an attempt to counter the attempt by Facebook to beam internet via drones.

The announcement of Google to discontinue the Titan project comes at a time when Facebook announced that its Aquila project that offers similar services to the rural areas has been successfully tested.

When announced back in 2014, Google claimed that internet drone projects are in its infant stage, but the “atmospheric satellites could help bring internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like deforestation”.

Nevertheless, three years of testing the drone project has now proved technically unfeasible and lacked the funding needed to run the project.

The Google X team also experience a crash of the unmanned vehicle in Arizona desert, which was later found to be associated with a wing fault. Facebook’s Aquila had also faced similar wing malfunction during one of its maiden test flight.

According to the statement of Google X, the team working on the Titan has been reassigned to different other projects including similar projects like Loon and Wing, which are also atmospheric satellite internet services of Google.

Facebook’s Aquila drone had also crashed during its test flight in June and an explosion had destroyed one of its satellites earlier in 2016, but the company is persistent to continue with the project and see it as a game changer.

from-www.americanbazaaronline.com