First reported by 9to5Google and now confirmed by Business Insider, Google’s ambitious Titan Aerospace project is officially dead.

All that Titan Aerospace could have been

It was in 2014: back then Alphabet didn’t exist. It was still Google that was the parent company. Google bought Titan Aerospace which had been developing solar-powered drones that could fly for an extended period of time. Google’s ultimate goal was to use these drones to grant Internet access to remote areas, not dissimilar to Facebook’s Aquila.

Things started to get a bit complicated after Google became Alphabet. According to Business Insider, Titan was folded into X and then lumped into Project Wing, a division dedicated to developing delivery drones. However, under the rigid financial plans proposed by Alphabet’s CFO, Ruth Porat, the focus reportedly shifted to Project Loon.

Reoriented towards Project Loon

Alphabet apparently saw more potential in Project Loon, which makes high-altitude balloon for the same purpose of delivering Internet access to people. According to Jacquelyn Miller, an X representative, Project Wing was terminated some time last year and at least some employees were reassigned to the Project Loon team for several reasons:

The team from Titan was brought into X in late 2015. We ended our exploration of high altitude UAVs for internet access shortly after. By comparison, at this stage the economics and technical feasibility of Project Loon present a much more promising way to connect rural and remote parts of the world. Many people from the Titan team are now using their expertise as part of other high flying projects at X, including Loon and Project Wing.

It looks like Alphabet will continue to invest in projects regarding high-altitude Internet even if it’s not done through solar-powered drones. However, that is not to say that Project Loon has been going perfectly smoothly. First of all, Google’s very own Fiber Internet service has been halted, and rumor has it the search giant might be looking into selling Fiber altogether. And with Mike Cassidy stepping down as project leader for Loon among other major departures, it’s unclear how promising this project is really in actuality.

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