SpaceX successfully landed a reusable Falcon 9 rocket on a floating drone ship at sea early Sunday after the vehicle had sent a Japanese communications satellite into orbit.
The California-based company’s eighth launch this year was part of its ongoing effort to re-use costly rocket parts instead of jettisoning them into the ocean.
It was also the fourth time SpaceX has vertically landed a used Falcon 9 rocket aboard a floating platform at sea.
Make no mistake: Drones are coming, and they’re going to change a lot of things about how we shape our lives. So why shouldn’t we change how we shape our buildings to get ready for them?
Early adopters will probably buy personal flying vehicles in the not too distant future. Some models are being developed as we speak. Maybe an innovative architectural firm will even pitch the idea of building a ‘drone-ready’ condo tower in Japan or Dubai in the coming months—and maybe it will sell faster than we think.
Britain will spend more than £800million funding next-generation military technology including tiny “dragonfly drones” for gathering intelligence and laser weapons to eliminate missiles.
Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, will today announce an innovation unit which will encourage individuals and companies to pitch ideas to a panel of experts. The best ideas will be fast-tracked with the support of an £800million fund over the next decade.
Projects which will be funded include a “micro-drone” with tiny flapping wings inspired by the biology of a dragon fly, which could have a “huge impact” on operations in urban environments.
Half quad-copter and 1/2 missile.
The design of small UAVs usually falls into one of two categories: the cruciform quadcopter (with extra arms added as necessary) and the fixed-wing glider (such as early iterations of Google’s delivery drones). However, there’s still room for innovation in this market, as demonstrated by the QuadRKT: a quadcopter drone with a rocket-shaped fuselage that can hovers vertically, but also switch to a horizontal orientation when it needs to go really fast.
The QuadRKT’s basic design has been around for a few years, but its creators are now looking to raise funds on Kickstarter for further development. The team originally developed prototypes of the design (then known as the XQ-139 family of aircraft) for DARPA’s Experimental Vertical Takeoff and Landing program. The US agency reportedly declared the QuadRKT “too risky” to build, and the drone’s creators — a team of engineering and aerospace experts — are now trying to make their design a commercial reality by themselves.
Where is PETA when you need them.
When we think of drones, we still often think primarily of their military uses, despite the fact that they’re increasingly becoming a part of our everyday lives. Drones serve an impressive range of roles in the military, commercial, public, and civilian sectors. They’re also becoming more and more affordable and accessible. If you’ve been to an open-air event with a decent crowd lately, there was probably at least one person there flying their personal drone around, taking aerial footage to upload to social media.
As something becomes more common, we tend to find more creative purposes for it. And there are definitely some people out there getting creative with drones, for better or for worse.
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There are 110 million active landmines in the world. This drone is detonating them, one by one: http://kck.st/29RtcCo
