Google's solar internet drone project has been finally shut down. According to recent reports, Google quietly dropped the Titan Project shortly after it folded into X in late 2015. The Titan Project has said before that its drones are capable of collecting real time; high resolution images of the earth by carrying atmospheric sensors and support voice and data services. They were capable of bringing access to internet to millions of people, which would also help solve other problems as well such as disaster relief and deforestation.
Reasons That Led To The Downfall
Project Titan did not go well and the company already saw it coming this way. The 2015 drone crash was bad enough to explain the cause of its downfall. There were also reports of the problems with both transmitting the 5G data as well as low budget. Project Loon high latitude balloons were much more promising than the solar powered drones which was a better of getting people online in remote areas. There were about 50 employees working on the project that has been moved over either to other projects such as Project Loon and Project Wing, or they are looking for other jobs.
What Were The Causes?
The technology behind Project Loon is very clear which is more successful than the drone, a balloon can stay relatively stationary as compared to a drone aircraft. In addition, a balloon has fewer parts than that of a drone and would have less chancing of breaking down and failing in certain circumstances.
Another important aspect behind this failure was low budget. Now there are many Google projects that are operating under the Alphabet Umbrella. So they are under pressure of turning their ideas into practicality and hence Alphabet would be more likely to shutter initiatives that are into trouble or redundant.
