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Watch Video: First Drone Delivery on Mount Everest “Successfully Completed” 

Chi­na-based DJI recent­ly teamed up with Nepalese drone ser­vice com­pa­ny Air­lift, video pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny 8KRAW, and cer­ti­fied moun­tain sher­pa, Ming­ma Gyal­je, to fly the world’s first suc­cess­ful drone deliv­ery on Mount Ever­est, reports stattimes.com.

“A DJI Fly­Cart 30,” explains the arti­cle, “flew three oxy­gen bot­tles and 1.5kg of sup­plies from the Ever­est Base Camp to Camp 1 (5,300–6,000m ASL). On the return trip trash was car­ried back down.”

The two Camps are sep­a­rat­ed by the Khum­bu Ice­fall, one of the most per­ilous stages of the ascent. While heli­copters can the­o­ret­i­cal­ly make the same jour­ney, they are rarely used due to the sig­nif­i­cant dan­gers and costs. 

The arti­cle con­tin­ues, “Before under­tak­ing deliv­ery flights, DJI engi­neers con­sid­ered the extreme envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges of Ever­est, includ­ing tem­per­a­tures rang­ing between ‑15° to 5°C, wind speeds up to 15m/s, and high alti­tudes over 6,000m ASL. Rig­or­ous tests of DJI Fly­Cart 30 were then con­duct­ed, includ­ing unloaded hov­er, wind resis­tance, low-tem­per­a­ture and weight capac­i­ty tests with suc­ces­sive­ly heav­ier pay­loads.” 

Please Watch Video

Usu­al­ly, the respon­si­bil­i­ty of trans­port­ing sup­plies and clear­ing rub­bish on Ever­est are on the shoul­ders of local Sher­pa guides who may need to cross the ice­fall over 30 times in a sea­son to trans­port sup­plies such as oxy­gen bot­tles, gas can­is­ters, tents, food and ropes. Each climber is esti­mat­ed to leave 8kg of trash behind on Ever­est, and despite cleanup efforts, tonnes of waste remain on its slopes.

The Fly­Cart 30 drone can car­ry 15kg between camps in 12 min­utes for a round trip, day or night, eas­ing the bur­den on Sher­pas, who repeat­ed­ly risk their lives nav­i­gat­ing the treach­er­ous Khum­bu Ice­fall.

Sher­pa Min­i­ma Gyalke, remarked, ”We need to spend six to eight hours each day walk­ing through this ice­fall. Last year I lost three Sher­pas. If we’re not lucky, if our time is not right, we lose our life there.”

Christi­na Zhang, DJI Senior Cor­po­rate Strat­e­gy Direc­tor, com­ment­ed, “Our team embarked on this endeav­our to help and make cleanup efforts on Ever­est safer and more effi­cient. The abil­i­ty to safe­ly trans­port equip­ment, sup­plies and waste by drone has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tionise Ever­est moun­taineer­ing logis­tics, facil­i­tate trash cleanup efforts, and improve safe­ty for all involved.”

The deploy­ment of deliv­ery drones in high-alti­tude regions not only improves safe­ty and effi­cien­cy in such chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ments, but high­lights the impor­tance of envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion and sus­tain­able prac­tices with­in the moun­taineer­ing indus­try.

Launched glob­al­ly in Jan­u­ary, DJI Fly­Cart 30 has been deployed to help plant saplings in steep Japan­ese hill­side envi­ron­ments; trans­form a solar PV instal­la­tion in Mex­i­co; assist moun­tain fire res­cue efforts in Nor­way; and improve sci­en­tif­ic research oper­a­tions in Antarc­ti­ca.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.dji.com/uk/flycart-30

(News Source: www.stattimes.com)

(Images: DJI)

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