Airbus subsidiary AALTO HAPS hopes by mid-2026 to have begun construction of a new launch and landing site in northern Australia for its solar-powered Zephyr high-altitude platform-station (HAPS), paving the way for the start of operations there later this year.
Meanwhile, the UK-headquartered company continues its push to achieve certification from its home regulator while simultaneously improving the Zephyr’s performance and raising output at its Farnborough production site to support full-scale deployment later this decade.
Announcing the move to establish its second “AALTOport” in Australia – beyond its current facility in Kenya – chief executive Hughes Boulnois tells FlightGlobal that the company has a shortlist of four sites in the country’s Northern Territory.
While Boulnois does not provide more specifics, he says the sites are broadly located near to Katherine, a town some 167 miles (271km) to the southeast of the territory’s capital Darwin.
Northern Territory was selected as the optimum location due to three factors, he explains: suitable meteorological conditions, airspace access and regulatory permissions, and governmental support.
To some degree, the first criteria is based on hard-won experience: flights in Western Australia in 2018 and 2019 resulted in “crashes due to the particularly bad conditions [encountered]”, he says; Australian investigators blamed the 2019 loss on an encounter with unexpected turbulence.
AALTO has absorbed those lessons “and also the experience in Kenya”, allowing it “to refine our criteria for an AALTOport” in relation to the terrain, prevailing weather conditions and relative proximity to the Jetstream, he says.
Broadly speaking, to ensure the Zephyr’s untroubled access to and from the strasophere – some 60,000ft up – it needs to operate from “very flat” terrain away from the coast, with benign wind conditions at both ground level and much higher “so that means the Jetstream needs to be further north”, says Boulnois.
Northern Territory emerged as prime contender for the Australian site after an “intense six or seven months of assessment”, including global meteorological surveys that were then confirmed by the deployment of radiosonde ballons to accurately measure conditions at local level.
In addition to meeting AALTO’s operational criteria, Northern Territory ticks another box too: “It is not too far away from the equator for the solar performance, which is a given for a solar platform like the Zephyr.”
Boulnois expects site selection by April as the regulatory environment becomes clearer and the necessary airspace approvals are granted, he says.
Assuming everything proceeds to schedule, construction can start at the site later in the second quarter. Its AALTOport requires two large hangars – one for the reassembly of the Zephyr following its transportation from the UK, and one for payload integration – alongside a control station housed in a modified ISO shipping container.
Although a short runway or unpaved airstrip is required for landings, such infrastructure is simple to build, he adds.
Boulnois praises the level of engagement from the Northern Territory’s government, which has been hugely supportive, he says. “They love the project because of its technological nature, but also the fact that we are pioneering something completely new and something that can bring new skills, new talents and a new footprint to Northern Territory.”
While AALTO intends to service Asian customers from the Northern Territory site, it also hopes to foster “new use cases for Australia with Australian partners”.
To achieve that ambition, it has launched a call to domestic payload providers, research institutions and technology partners “to explore integration opportunities” on the platform.
Potential missions include the monitoring of natural gas production – a key industry for the region – or adding another layer of border or maritime security, says Boulnois.
Creating a “coalition of partners” to enable “commercialisation of the stratospace” is a critical step “for me and for Australia”, he says, adding: “Australia is very much in favour of having indigenous developments and we are following that strategy to become Australian as much as we can,” he adds.
AALTO is now entering a critical period for the business as it aims to secure certification from the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) in late 2027 or early 2028.
Agreement on the certification basis for the Zephyr was obtained from the CAA last year, based on existing CS-23 regulations designed for small, commuter-category aircraft with certain specific additions.
“It’s the first time ever that the certification baseline for a HAPS has been approved by a major aviation authority,” he adds.
Performance of the Zephyr – currently known as the Z8 – is also being enhanced. Testing of new batteries is ongoing, which should raise maximum endurance from 90-100 days currently to at least 150 days “and we will try to stretch as much as we can towards 200 days”.
Currently boasting a maximum take-off weight of around 75kg (165lb) a future higher-weight variant, the Z9, is planned to be flying in around 2029-2030. This would likely feature a different design and new materials to achieve better aeroelasticity, he adds.
“There is a lot to be done but for the time being our focus is on the commercialisation and having the certification right, because if we do them for the Z8 this will make it easier to transpose them to a bigger platform.”
In the meantime, AALTO “has been working in the shadows, preparing the ramp-up”, he says – reconfiguring its Farnborough final assembly line to enable production of up to 20-25 of Zephyrs per year.
That figure will steadily rise from three in 2025 – all of which were assigned to the Kenyan operation – to five in 2026 and then to 10-12 the following year, he says. And crucially, the output this year should include the first Zephyr to be flown from the new Australian site.
AALTO will continue its current contractor-owned, contractor-operated model, providing services for customers using the Zephyr as a surveillance or communications relay asset, Boulnois says, although notes that in certain circumstances defence customers may wish to acquire the aircraft outright.
