The Air Force Research Laboratory hopes a common car manufacturing technique might unlock the solution for building affordable autonomous drones that can be fielded in large numbers. The Aerospace Systems Directorate of AFRL, the service’s research and development arm, on Feb. 28 flew a General Atomics-made XQ-67A drone for the first time. But what makes […]
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force’s plan to create a fleet of drone wingmen to fly alongside piloted fighter jets will accelerate in 2024, as the service ramps up its experimentation with autonomous flight. These drones, which the Air Force calls collaborative combat aircraft, are intended to fly alongside F-35s and the future Next Generation […]
China’s reusable space plane just got a little more mysterious. Just four days after being launched on its third mission, China’s Shenlong (“Divine Dragon”) robotic space plane seems to have placed six objects into Earth orbit. Amateur spacecraft trackers around the world have been following the objects closely for days and have recorded emissions coming […]