Facebook drops bid to build internet beaming aircraft

Facebook has announced that its days of dabbling into aerospace engineering are over, at least for now.

The company said in a blog post on Tuesday that it will no longer design or build its own aircraft to beam internet connectivity over regions with limited access, a project it has been working on since 2014.

Facebook is also closing its facility in the U.K. that managed drone design, development and testing. The social network was able to build and test the drone, called Aquila, but never managed to deploy it.

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Facebook said there are now other companies in aerospace that are investing in the same kind of technology. So it’s time for the company to step out of the race. Instead of building, Facebook said it will work with partners like Airbus SE on high-altitude connectivity technologies.

Though it ultimately didn’t live up to its ambitions in the skies, the Aquila drone served as a visible symbol of innovation at a company where all of the most important work usually happens behind the scenes, in lines of software code.

 

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