Earlier this month, Airbus Defence and Space (www.airbus.com) announced the successful landing of the first production aircraft of the Zephyr programme, the new Zephyr S HAPS (High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite).

After taking off on 11 July in Arizona (USA), Zephyr S logged a maiden flight of over 25 days, the longest-duration flight ever made.

An application has been made to establish this as a new world record. This maiden flight of the solar-powered Zephyr S proves the system capabilities and achieved all the flight’s engineering objectives.

The previous longest-duration flight record was also achieved by a Zephyr prototype aircraft a few years ago; it achieved more than 14 days of continuous flight — then 10-times longer than any other aircraft in the world.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence will be the first customer for this aircraft, which harnesses the sun’s rays and runs exclusively on solar power — above the weather and conventional air traffic — to provide “persistent local satellite-like services”.

Jana Rosenmann, head of Unmanned Aerial Systems at Airbus, said: “This very successful maiden flight represents a new milestone in the Zephyr programme, adding a new stratospheric flight endurance record, which we hope will be formalised very shortly.

"We will, in the coming days, check all engineering data and outputs and start preparing for additional flights that are planned for the second half of this year from our new operating site at the Wyndham airfield in Western Australia.”