News, deep dives, and analysis — every NASA story, newest first.
Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. We have three stories for you this week. DJI gets FCC approval for a new Avata 360. NASA is testing new drone navigation software in Death Valley for future Mars missions. And Texas clarifies that using drones for fishing is illegal under federal law. Let’s get to it.…
NASA has been busy preparing the next generation of autonomous explorers, and this year that meant flying drones across the scorching dunes of Death Valley, a place so unforgiving that even your sunscreen wants sunscreen. The agency needed terrain as bland and empty as the Martian sand fields that once confused the Ingenuity helicopter, so…
Ukraine has begun mass production of its domestically developed Octopus interceptor drone system, Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal announced on Friday, just hours after Russia launched one of the war’s deadliest drone attacks on Kyiv. The announcement marks a critical escalation in Ukraine’s efforts to build cost-effective air defenses against Russia’s relentless Shahed drone campaign. The…
Discarded fishing nets from Sweden and France’s Brittany coast are finding new purpose on Ukraine’s frontlines, where they’re being deployed as low-tech anti-drone barriers against Russian attack drones. The Breton charity Kernic Solidarités has delivered 280 kilometers (174 miles) of horsehair netting to Ukraine—transforming what would be 800 tons of annual waste into frontline protection…
Belgium is deploying German military counter-drone systems and strengthening drone registration enforcement after a wave of unidentified aircraft forced multiple airport closures and exposed critical gaps in European airspace security. The emergency response follows disruptions at Brussels Airport, Liège Airport, and repeated incursions over military bases housing NATO assets. Germany announced Th
University of Minnesota researchers successfully completed their 11th field trial of autonomous AI-powered drone swarms that analyze wildfire smoke patterns in three dimensions, marking a significant step toward deploying academic research for real-world emergency response as climate change intensifies fire seasons nationwide. On October 24, graduate student Nikil Krishnakumar stood on a 30-acre p
Ukraine is deploying approximately 9,000 drones per day against Russian forces, according to a top Ukrainian military official, revealing an operational tempo that dwarfs global drone production capacity and underscores how completely unmanned systems now dominate modern warfare. Ivan Pavlenko, chief of the electronic warfare directorate of Ukraine’s armed forces, disclosed the figure during a…
What Ukrainian troops dismissed as “Star Wars” fantasy a year ago has become the most cost-effective air defense innovation of the war—and now NATO is racing to adopt the same technology. Ukraine’s cheap interceptor drones are hunting down Russian attack drones mid-flight at a fraction of traditional missile costs, fundamentally changing how modern air defense…
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