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Fri 21st September 2018SkyDragon (HAP) testing in Scotland by TAO Tech. UK Ltd

TAO Tech UK is a company specialising in the development and production of high altitude platforms (HAP) designed to fly up to and into the stratosphere carrying communications hardware. TAO Tech UK works in close cooperation with the well-established, German aerospace specialist the TAO Group and Prof. Dr. Bernd Kröplin, founder of TAO Group and his team, which has been designing and developing high altitude platforms for the past 15 years and who invented and developed a unique flying platform that can typically be used for telecommunications, mapping, monitoring and weather observation purposes in the stratosphere.

The company is now also developing a low-cost launch facility to send small satellites into space from the UK.

Trials and ground tests were successfully carried out at the Machrihanish air base in Scotlandthis summer for the Tao Tech UK HAP air vehicle, “SkyDragon”, with further developments
due later this year including a specially developed stratosphere simulation rig suitable for
testing new propulsion designs.

TAO Tech UK, which is Durham based, fully expects also to be launching Nano and microsatellites from altitude into orbit within the next few years, pushing turnover through the £10m mark.

Managing director Glenn Jones said: “We have been focused on the commercial development aspects of SkyDragon as a long endurance surveillance and communications platform and this is going well however, using this technology, we have also turned our attention to the potential of providing high-altitude satellite launch capabilities here in the UK using the SkyDragon design”

Media: 

For more information contact:

Mrs. Regine C. Henschel on +49 711 131620
Email: henschel@tao-group.de

or Glenn Jones on + 44 7971 287560
Email: g.jonez@taotechuk.com