News, deep dives, and analysis — every Texas story, newest first.
Texas drone news covers border and cartel security concerns, the state’s outsized role in commercial drone delivery, and police and industry activity, tracked apart from the general United States desk given how much drone news concentrates here.
Cartel drone activity has made counter-drone authority a real policy fight: Texas wants counter-drone power, but only 61 US officers nationwide are currently certified to use it, a gap between what the state wants and what federal certification currently allows. Detection technology is advancing separately: AT&T is turning its 5G towers into drone radar using existing network infrastructure rather than dedicated counter-drone hardware.
Texas is also one of the most active states for commercial drone delivery. Zipline’s Walmart drone parachuted a package into Greenville, Texas, landing feet from a parked truck, part of a broader Walmart delivery network expansion across the state.
Industrial investment is following. Saronic is planning a $3 billion Texas shipyard for drone ships, and League City police plan to fly BRINC 911 drones by December. Every Texas drone story is in the feed below.
Last updated August 24, 2026 — the feed below updates with every new story.
El Paso police told Texas senators they have tracked 1,776 cross-border cartel drone incursions and need more authority to respond. Congress already granted that authority in December. The constraint is a single FBI school in Alabama that has certified 61 officers nationwide.
AT&T and Ericsson used three commercial 5G cell sites near AT&T Stadium to detect and track drones without radar or new hardware.
A two-minute DJI Mavic 3 flight to film a Houston church has become a federal case carrying up to a year in prison.
A Zipline delivery drone flying for Walmart deployed its emergency parachute over a Greenville, Texas neighborhood on Sunday, July 26, and drifted down onto a residential street near Roy Warren Parkway and Joe Ramsey Boulevard, coming to rest about three feet from a parked pickup truck. Nobody was hurt, and a Walmart employee showed up quickly…
Saronic says it will spend $3 billion to build Port Alpha in Brownsville, a Texas shipyard for autonomous and crewed vessels that could reshape the industrial scale of maritime drone production.
League City Police Department plans to launch a Drone as First Responder program by December after city council approved a Motorola Solutions pilot agreement built around BRINC aircraft, with the first year free and a six-year contract value of up to $1,759,980 if the city keeps the program.
Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. We have three stories for you this week. The FBI seizes over 600 drones at World Cup venues so far. DJI releases the Matrice 400 parachute, which is really interesting. And Boom Supersonic offers a $100,000 prize for anyone who’s going to build a Mach 1 RC airplane.…
Steffanie Rivers, who runs TCB Drones Academy in Dallas, announced a national program on July 4 to steer students at historically Black colleges and universities toward careers in drones and aviation. She is calling it the National HBCU Aviation and Drone Leadership Initiative. Rivers, a Tennessee State University graduate who describes herself as the first…
Cartel drone activity along the border has made counter-drone authority a priority for Texas law enforcement, but the state is running into a national bottleneck: Texas wants that power, and only 61 US officers are currently certified to legally operate counter-drone equipment.
Very. Zipline's Walmart delivery service parachuted a package into Greenville, Texas, landing feet from a parked truck, and the state hosts some of the most visible real-world delivery testing anywhere in the country, alongside broader Walmart drone network expansion.
Industrial and defense investment shows up too. Saronic is planning a $3 billion Texas shipyard for drone ships, and League City police plan to fly BRINC 911 drones by December, both signs of Texas drone activity extending well past border security.
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