Editing Satellite Internet access (section)

====Ultralight atmospheric aircraft as satellites====
A proposed alternative to relay satellites is a special-purpose [[high altitude platform station]]s aircraft, which would fly along a circular path above a fixed ground location, operating under autonomous computer control at a height of approximately 20,000 meters.

For example, the United States [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] [[DARPA Vulture|Vulture]] project envisaged an ultralight aircraft capable of station-keeping over a fixed area for a period of up to five years, and able to provide both continuous surveillance to ground assets as well as to service extremely low-latency communications networks.<ref>{{cite press release |url=http://www.darpa.mil/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=1800 |title=DARPA's Vulture Program Enters Phase II |date=September 15, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121017002043/http://www.darpa.mil/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=1800 |archive-date=2012-10-17 |access-date=2021-08-06}}</ref> This project was cancelled in 2012 before it became operational.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}

Onboard batteries would charge during daylight hours through solar panels covering the wings and would provide power to the plane during night. Ground-based satellite internet dishes would relay signals to and from the aircraft, resulting in a greatly reduced round-trip signal latency of only 0.25 milliseconds. The planes could potentially run for long periods without refueling. Several such schemes involving various types of aircraft have been proposed in the past.