Lifeboat Foundation

Amazon is using a “simulated dog” to test its delivery drones, according to IBTimes.

The e-commerce giant wants to use drones to deliver parcels to customers in less than 30 minutes but it clearly has some concerns about how dogs might interfere.

At least one simulated dog is being used to “help Amazon see how UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] would respond to a canine trying to protect its territory,” according to IBTimes.

Continue reading “Amazon’s delivery drone tests reportedly involve a ‘simulated dog’” »

The US wants to stay in front of China with hypersonic weapons able to travel at five-times the speed of sound and destroy targets with a “kinetic energy” warhead.

Air Force weapons developers expect to operate hypersonic intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance drones by the 2040s, once scientific progress with autonomy and propulsion technology matures to a new level.

The advent of using a recoverable drone platform able to travel at high altitudes, faster than Mach 5, will follow the emergence of hypersonic weapons likely to be operational in the mid-2020s, according to the Air Force Chief Scientist Geoffrey Zacharias.

Continue reading “Hypersonic Attack Drones by 2040? Is China In Front of the US in Developing Hypersonic Weapons?” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2rNWbpOsOvI

Late for work? Imagine skipping the subway and instead heading to your local “vertiport,” where you can hop into an aircraft the size of an SUV that runs on electricity and works pretty much like an elevator.

Get in, punch in your destination, and off you go. Alone.

Continue reading “Soon you’ll be able to go to work in a flying taxi” »

After more than two years of landing its rockets after launch, SpaceX finally sent one of its used Falcon 9s back into space. The rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, this evening, sending a communications satellite into orbit, and then landed on one of SpaceX’s drone ships floating in the Atlantic Ocean. It was round two for this particular rocket, which already launched and landed during a mission in April of last year. But the Falcon 9’s relaunch marks the first time an orbital rocket has launched to space for a second time.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk appeared on the company’s live stream shortly after the landing and spoke about the accomplishment. “It means you can fly and refly an orbital class booster, which is the most expensive part of the rocket. This is going to be, ultimately, a huge revolution in spaceflight,” he said.

BRUSSELS NATO plans to spend 3 billion euros ($3.24 billion) to upgrade its satellite and computer technology over the next three years as the Western military alliance adapts to new threats, a senior official said.

Seeking to deter hackers, and other threats including Iranian missiles, the investments underscore NATO’s recognition that conflicts are increasingly fought on computer networks as well as in the air, on land and at sea.

A senior official at the NATO Communications and Information Agency said the plans include a 1.7-billion-euro investment in satellite communications to better support troops and ships deployed across the alliance, as well as aiding the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones.

In 2020, Natilus’s huge unmanned planes could carry 200,000 pounds of goods across the world. But first, a 30-foot prototype must pass test runs.

To address the unique needs of the world’s most complex industrial environments,

Airobotics has developed a platform that is fully automated, industrial grade, on-demand and multi-purpose.

Stephen Marr had his suspicions when he photographed a mysterious piece of equipment atop SpaceX’s drone ship at Port Canaveral on Monday.

“I knew there was something different there,” Marr, 34, said.

So he did what any lover of space and social media would do: He posted it online. Reddit users quickly propelled Marr’s clear, high-resolution photo to the top of the website’s SpaceX community and so began discussion that the object was likely a highly anticipated robot that would interact with Falcon 9 first stages.

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Ten of the most promising new regional aerospace start-up companies descended on El Segundo on Tuesday to pitch their futuristic concepts for the next wave of industry advancement, from orbiting cell towers in space to drones that communicate with each other.

The event, organized by new-tech business support company Starburst Accelerator, was held at The Aerospace Corp., the research and development arm of the adjacent Los Angeles Air Force Base.

Such meetings between legacy aerospace companies and energetic up-and-comers are becoming commonplace, as the industry works to keep up with a flood of technological advancements propelling the commercialization of low-Earth orbit.

Continue reading “Aerospace start-ups pitch futuristic concepts to military defense, private companies in El Segundo” »