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Category: drones

Innovating And Investing In The New Space Age — Space 2.0 — Hélène Huby, VP, Orion-ESM, Airbus Defence and Space.

Hélène Huby is Vice-President of the Orion European Service Module (Orion-ESM), at Airbus Defence & Space.

Airbus Defence & Space is a division of the Airbus Group, a European multinational aerospace corporation and the world’s largest airliner manufacturer.

The Orion-ESM is the European Space Agency’s contribution to NASA’s Orion spacecraft, which will send astronauts back to the Moon, and beyond. It provides electricity, water, oxygen and nitrogen, as well as keeping the spacecraft at the right temperature and on course.

Hélène was previously Head of Innovation at Airbus Defence & Space where she grew a portfolio of over 50 new businesses, ranging from space data-based services to electrical-powered stratospheric drones, and was responsible for setting up Airbus Ventures, and an innovation center in Silicon Valley, for the Airbus Group.

Privately Hélène invests in a variety of tech startups, serves as Senior Adviser of Red River West VC, and is on the boards of multiple startups in the US, China and the EU.

Hélène also co-founded the Microbiome Foundation, is an Anchor Partner at Yunus Social Business, is the Founder & Chairman Urania Ventures, and is the Co-Founder & Chairman of the non-profit Karman organization.

Prior to Airbus, Hélène worked for FABERNOVEL, a European digital seed-investment and innovation consulting company. She began her career in the media sector where she launched innovative projects on the web.

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It can exceed the speed of sound, hitting an astonishing Mach 2.1! 😲🤯

A new combat drone has been created that can hit speeds of more than 1500mph.

The drone is much bigger than the ones you’ll have seen floating around your local parks, however, and looks more like a small spaceship.

Created by Kelley Aerospace, the supersonic drone is made up of carbon fibre and is completely unmanned; it can exceed the speed of sound, hitting an astonishing Mach 2.

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The Defense Department is hungry for small drones that will track objects and fly into buildings, combat zones and other dangerous areas with little help from remote pilots. Self-piloting drones will become a key part of fighting and other military activities in the years to come, said Mike Brown, director of the Defense Innovation Unit, a Pentagon organization that aims to facilitate cooperation between the military and the tech industry.

While much has been made of tech’s unwillingness to work with the Pentagon, start-ups are still plumbing the industry’s decades-long ties to the military.

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This bolt-on system creates a drone that can fly straight out of your fabricator.

It’s been very cool to watch 3D printers and laser cutters evolve into fairly common tools over the last decade-ish, finding useful niches across research, industry, and even with hobbyists at home. Capable as these fabricators are, they tend to be good at just one specific thing: making shapes out of polymer. Which is great! But we have all kinds of other techniques for making things that are even more useful, like by adding computers and actuators and stuff like that. You just can’t do that with your 3D printer or laser cutter, because it just does its one thing—which is too bad.

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Instead of firing missiles, planes may carry and launch unmanned drones that will be able to shoot their own missiles to search and destroy targets.

Aerospace giant Northrop Grumman is wasting no time in this competition.

Just two days after DARPA named it as one of three competitors for the LongShot contract, the company released an image of its concept for an air-launched unmanned aircraft system (UAS), Aviation Week reported.

Imagine an unmanned aircraft, speeding ahead of its launch aircraft, that itself can fire multiple air-to-air intercept missiles that can seek out and destroy.

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