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Category: drones – Page 42

SpaceX has successfully launched and landed the same Falcon 9 booster twice in three weeks, smashing the current record for orbital-class rocket turnaround.

The existing record was also held by Falcon 9 and set in early 2021 when booster B1060 launched a Turkish communications satellite and a batch of Starlink spacecraft just 27 days and 4 hours apart. Now, just under 15 months later, a new Falcon 9 booster has decisively taken the crown.

At 5:27 pm EDT, Falcon 9 B1062 lifted off as planned from SpaceX’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) Launch Complex 40 pad. Flying for the sixth time, the reused booster carried an expendable Falcon upper stage, fairing, and a batch of 53 Starlink V1.5 satellites most of the way out of Earth’s atmosphere to a velocity of 2.2 kilometers per second (Mach ~6.5) before separating and landing on a SpaceX drone ship.

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Builder of infrastructure for drone delivery and eVTOL air taxi vehicles, Urban-Air Port opens its first fully functional vertiport.

Urban-Air Port, the London-based developer of vertiports for delivery drones and electronic takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles like air taxis, has opened the doors of its first functional aerial hub – one of 200 terminals it plans to build around the globe in the near future.

Awaiting those, Urban-Air Port will open the hub to visitors for a look at what future urban air travel will be like (complete with screens listing departing flights and destinations it expects to host). The facility includes off-grid hydrogen eVTOL vehicle charging stations; an elevated takeoff and landing platform; security checks and passenger waiting zones; a cargo drone area; and spaces for its host of retail brand partners.

Continue reading “Urban-Air Port opens first functional eVTOL vertiport for delivery drones and flying taxis” | >

ModalAI, a Blue UAS framework manufacturer of autonomous drone technology, says it has developed the world’s smallest and most advanced autopilot built in the USA. Weighing only 16 grams, ModalAI’s VOXL 2 is designed specifically for GPS-denied, autonomous drones with obstacle avoidance.

It is powered by the Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G platform and integrates a PX4 real-time flight controller with an 8-core CPU, a GPU and NPU that provide a combined 15 Tera Operations Per Second (TOPs), seven image sensors, and TDK IMUs, and barometer.

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With some parts held together by duct tape.

In the raging battle between Russia and Ukraine, Russia’s small drones have been reported to be taking a deadly toll on Ukrainian forces. A new video, however, is revealing that the highly efficient precision drones are not as advanced as one might expect.

Ukraine’s Defense Ministry shared a video on Sunday that shows a soldier allegedly dismantling a Russian military surveillance drone and pointing out several highly unsophisticated features. In fact, seeing what the whole drone consists of it seems like something a schoolchild could put together.

## A generic handheld Canon DSLR

The drone being taken apart is an Orlan-10 model that fell on Ukrainian soil. The first thing the soldier points out is that the drone’s camera is a simple generic handheld Canon DSLR, the kind you can find on any tourist’s camera. How can such a complex war tool have such a common feature?

Continue reading “Video shows Ukrainian soldier allegedly taking apart a Russian drone and discovering its regular camera” | >