Drones are being developed in Christchurch.

A Christchurch company is building a 32-meter-wide drone, which it says is the largest aircraft of its kind ever built in the southern hemisphere.

Kea Aerospace said the aircraft would be powered by hundreds of solar cells and three electric motors, which would collect enough energy from the sun every day to allow it to fly for months.

Chief Executive Mark Rocket said the “Kea Atmos” would fly 65,000 feet (20 km) in the stratosphere, an altitude twice as high as commercial airliners.

The aircraft would be used to capture data for companies and organizations around the world.

Rocket said that it is currently prohibitively expensive to obtain regularly updated high-resolution data that covers large areas.

He said the Kea Atmos would fly 20 times closer to Earth than satellites and allow his camera to acquire much higher image quality, without the expense of operating in space.

There is currently a “huge data intelligence gap” that cannot be filled with satellites, manned aircraft or drones, he said.

“Only a small percentage of New Zealand’s land and waterways are surveyed from the air each year.”

The company would build and flight test “multiple prototypes” in 2021, build the first full-scale Kea Atmos in 2022 and launch the aerial imaging service in New Zealand and Australia in 2023.