Radical: Building persistent, high-performance infrastructure in the sky

Building persistent, high-performance infrastructure in the sky

Radical’s StratoSats are autonomous platforms that provide satellite-like services on demand. They fly within Earth’s atmosphere to provide persistent, high performance infrastructure across applications in earth observation, connectivity, and more. Unlike satellites, StratoSats navigate freely without the need for rocket launches or orbits - reducing costs, increasing flexibility, and ensuring customers get the targeted coverage they need.

Active Founders

James Thomas

Founder

Co-Founder & CEO at Radical (W23) - Radical makes high altitude solar-powered aircraft. Our aircraft are able to fly continuously in the stratosphere without landing. They provide an inexpensive, zero-emissions way to connect and observe earth like never before. Prior to this I worked at Amazon Prime Air for six years (doing aerodynamics and aircraft design for delivery drones).

James Thomas

Founder

Co-Founder & CEO at Radical (W23) - Radical makes high altitude solar-powered aircraft. Our aircraft are able to fly continuously in the stratosphere without landing. They provide an inexpensive, zero-emissions way to connect and observe earth like never before. Prior to this I worked at Amazon Prime Air for six years (doing aerodynamics and aircraft design for delivery drones).

Cyriel Notteboom

Founder

Co-Founder & CTO at Radical (W23) - Radical makes high altitude solar-powered aircraft. Our aircraft are able to fly continuously in the stratosphere without landing. They provide an inexpensive, zero-emissions way to connect and observe earth like never before. Prior to this I worked at Amazon Prime Air for six years (mechanical design, structural analysis and optimization of delivery drones).

Cyriel Notteboom

Founder

Co-Founder & CTO at Radical (W23) - Radical makes high altitude solar-powered aircraft. Our aircraft are able to fly continuously in the stratosphere without landing. They provide an inexpensive, zero-emissions way to connect and observe earth like never before. Prior to this I worked at Amazon Prime Air for six years (mechanical design, structural analysis and optimization of delivery drones).

Why Solar aircraft?

Our aircraft is designed to fly over specific areas for months, carrying various payloads for tasks like imagery, sensing, and telecommunications. What we’re building behaves like a drone in some ways, and like a satellite in other ways. Much like satellites, we’re able to provide service for long periods of time, but we’re also much closer to users (we fly at around 70,000 ft / 20 km altitude) and able to maneuver or remain over an area of interest. This makes what we’re building really well suited to applications that require continuous coverage or high-resolution/bandwidth data. Applications include:

Providing cell service or internet coverage
Aerial imagery and mapping
Meteorology and atmospheric sensing
Emergency response

How it works

Our aircraft is battery electric and driven by propellers. It has a large wing for high aerodynamic efficiency and to generate the necessary lift required to fly in the thin air of the stratosphere. The wing is covered in solar cells, during the day, these power the aircraft and charge its batteries. Through the night, battery energy is deployed to continue flight. We repeat this process daily, enabling us to fly for many months without needing to land. Ultimately, battery cycle life is what limits our aircraft’s flight endurance - and we can land, carry out simple maintenance tasks and then re-launch to continue flying.

Ask

We’re hiring and working with customers! If you’re interested in making use of this technology or working on challenging physics technology then get in touch!