General Atomics, San Diego, California, has been awarded a $22,164,736 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract for the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) – Track A program. Continue reading
Author Archives: The Editor
Mars Helicopter Gets Software Upgrade
The Ingenuity team has identified a software solution for the command sequence issue identified on Sol 49 (April 9) during a planned high-speed spin-up test of the helicopter’s rotors. Over the weekend, the team considered and tested multiple potential solutions to this issue, concluding that minor modification and reinstallation of Ingenuity’s flight control software is the most robust path forward. Continue reading
Embry-Riddle Studies Aircraft Wildlife Strikes
As an instructor at the Brazilian Air Force Academy, Flavio Antonio Coimbra Mendonça was flying in formation when one of his colleagues experienced a bird strike to the leading edge of his aircraft’s right wing. It was a relatively minor incident — not nearly as dramatic as the U.S. Airways Flight 1549 landing on New York’s Hudson River following a bird strike in 2009 — but it got Mendonca wondering about ways to reduce wildlife collisions with aircraft. Continue reading
Drone Shepherding Creates Less Stress
A new Australian study found that methods of shepherding have a direct impact on animal welfare and in particular, farmers who use drones to herd their flock have less stressed sheep.
Mustering Sheep Safely with Drones
Farmers Tom and Bill Alston use drones to take some of the stress and injury risk out of mustering sheep and cattle on their Beeac property in the south-west of Victoria State, Australia. Continue reading
Control System Helps Drones Team Up to Deliver Heavy Packages
A research team at the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed a modular solution for handling larger packages without the need for a complex fleet of drones of varying sizes. By allowing teams of small drones to collaboratively lift objects using an adaptive control algorithm, the strategy could allow a wide range of packages to be delivered using a combination of several standard-sized vehicles. Continue reading
Insitu Pacific Demonstrates Enhanced Detection Ranges
Insitu Pacific and Boeing Australia’s Detect and Avoid (DAA) capability is now ready to field in real-world operations after test flights demonstrated enhanced detection ranges between an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) and other airspace users. The technology is designed to advance the ability to safely integrate UAS into different classes of airspace. Continue reading
French and German Companies Export Products for Turkish Armed Drones used in Nagorno-Karabakh War
In June 2020, Azerbaijan announced it had purchased Bayraktar TB2 combat drones from Turkey. A few months later, during the Nagorno-Karabakh war, the Turkish UAVs were used. They were responsible for the destruction of military and civilian infrastructures, places of worship and residential areas in Karabakh, killing civilians in the process. Continue reading