The Tianmushan No. 1, a new hydrogen-powered drone, made a soft landing in Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang province, on Monday. With its long flight duration, ability to operate in extremely low temperatures and environmentally friendly design, it is expected to be a game-changer in the market.

Tianmushan No. 1 has revolutionized the application of conventional industrial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and offers good market prospects due to its unique capabilities in continuous long-range operation and its reliability in the cold, harsh conditions of northern China, said Xu Weiqiang, chief designer of Tianmushan No. 1.

Developed by a research team at the Tianmushan Laboratory, Tianmushan No. 1 has a long flight endurance, can adapt to extremely low temperatures and is environmentally friendly, Xu told Science and Technology Daily, addressing the prevailing problems with industrial drones.

The drone is technically designed for continuous operation over 100 kilometers and features an integrally molded fuselage made of lightweight carbon fiber material, giving it an empty weight of 19 kilograms and a maximum payload weight of 6 kilograms. Its long-range capability is thanks to the fully self-developed hydrogen propulsion system, which consists of hydrogen fuel cells and storage devices. The air-cooled fuel cell stack used in the system offers a maximum energy density of more than 1,000 Wh/kg, five to six times that of lithium batteries, Science and Technology Daily noted.

Tianmushan No. 1 is a major development in technological innovation in the field of low-altitude economy and an impetus for the combination of intelligent general aviation and the low-altitude economy, the lab said. In addition, Tianmushan No. 1 is the world’s first hydrogen-powered drone with an integrated parachute, meaning that in the event of an accident during flight, it will automatically deploy the parachute to minimize the risk, according to media reports.