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Spirit UAV Now Available Through GSA

Friday, May 5th, 2023

Wilmington, MA – Ascent AeroSystems, a leading unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) solutions provider, is pleased to announce that the Blue UAS-approved Spirit UAV is now available for purchase through the General Services Administration (GSA) Advantage website.

The Spirit UAV is a high-performance, multi-role aircraft designed and manufactured in the United States for a wide range of applications, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), search and rescue, border patrol, disaster relief and more. The industry-leading Spirit provides operators with an all-weather platform equipped with best-in-class integrated EO/thermal sensor payloads so personnel can reliably dispatch the surveillance asset they need whenever and wherever they need it.

The Spirit UAV is available in a range of configurations to meet specific mission requirements and is designed for easy transport and deployment, with a rugged, lightweight airframe that is backpack portable and can be quickly assembled and disassembled for storage and transport.

“Government operations require drones for a variety of reasons, including ISR, target acquisition, monitoring and inspection, rogue gas detection, etc.,” said Paul Fermo, VP of Business Development at Ascent AeroSystems. “Most drones are designed for single mission type, or worse, are restricted by a closed ecosystem, which limits their usefulness and subjects the government to obsolescence. Not Spirit. Spirit has a modular open architecture that allows government operators to customize the platform to meet any operational requirement, all from one common airframe.”

The Blue UAS-approved Spirit UAV is a trusted, versatile, secure platform for mission-critical operations. As the world’s most rugged and versatile coaxial drone, the Spirit is uniquely suited to serve the needs of mission-critical operators anytime, anywhere.

For more information on the Spirit please visit www.ascentaerosystems.com.

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DEFEA: RT and CopterPIX Launch the Sky-High DI System, a Combined Tactical Aerostat and Mini Quad Rotor Drone

Thursday, May 4th, 2023

The combined investigating system provides a comprehensive detection solution

DEFEA, May 9-11, Metropolitan Expo, Athens, Greece, Hall 2, Stand A2

May 3rd, 2023. RT LTA Systems Ltd. – a world-class designer, developer, and manufacturer of the SkyStar™ family of aerostats for use in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and communications applications – will launch, together with CopterPIX, the Sky-High DI system, a combined tactical aerostat and mini quad rotor drone. Providing a comprehensive detection solution, the investigating system combines the SkyStar™ 180/330 aerostat and the ERE-95 mini quadcopter.

SkyStarTM is an aerostat family of combat-proven, compact and mobile, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) systems based on lighter-than-air platforms. Designed for extended surveillance and reconnaissance missions for force protection and intelligence gathering, they operate day and night, with a minimal crew at an altitude of up to 1,500 ft, and carry high-performance payloads.

The ERE-95 Mini quad-rotor drone, designed for long-range inspection missions, has a dual day/thermal camera and an 80-100 minute flight time – providing at least 30% longer endurance time than any other commercial platform. These drones consistently outperform the competition in both military and non-military testing, performing complex missions in fully operational and challenging conditions, and are used worldwide by leading government, defense and commercial organizations.

Rami Shmueli, CEO of RT, says, “The integrated system can respond to an extensive range of scenarios. Until today, our system has enabled 24/7 observation and the collection of intelligence information through the wide range of payloads the system can carry. Now, thanks to the integration with the ERE-95 Mini, it also enables target tracking, and provides an active response to every scenario.”

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AeroVironment Awarded $10 Million Contract by NASA/JPL to Co-Design and Develop Two Helicopters for Mars Sample Return Mission

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2023

The success of Ingenuity Mars helicopter, co-designed and co-developed by AeroVironment and NASA/JPL, lays the foundation for the development of the Sample Recovery Helicopters

Early Concept for the Sample Recovery Helicopter Based on Ingenuity. (Credit: NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech)

ARLINGTON, Va., May 2, 2023 – AeroVironment, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVAV) has been awarded a $10 million contract by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to co-design and co-develop conceptual designs and engineering development units of Mars Sample Recovery Helicopter flight systems. Future efforts could include detailed design, build, and test of qualification and flight hardware. The helicopters build upon the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter design heritage and feature upgraded robotics to supplement aerial mobility.

AeroVironment engineers from the MacCready Works team previously worked with NASA JPL to co-design and develop the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which has completed 52 successful flights to date on Mars and survived 781 sols on the surface, far outperforming its design objectives.

“Accomplishing the impossible has been AeroVironment’s mission for more than 50 years and we are excited to be working with the NASA JPL team again to conquer the next challenge,” said Scott Newbern, AeroVironment’s vice president and chief technology officer. “Ingenuity’s flights on Mars are a giant leap for robotic technology. Now we’re advancing this science further by helping to build helicopters that not only will continue flight on Mars, but also will include apparatus to collect samples to bring back to Earth for this historic mission.”

The two planned Sample Recovery Helicopters would be a secondary method of sample retrieval for the NASA/ESA Mars Sample Return Campaign. NASA’s Perseverance rover, which has already been collecting a diverse set of scientifically selected samples for potential safe return to Earth, is currently planned as the primary method of delivering samples to the Sample Retrieval Lander.

The Sample Recovery Helicopters would expand on Ingenuity’s design, adding wheels and gripping capabilities, to provide a secondary method to pick up cached sample tubes left on the surface by Perseverance and transport them to the Sample Retrieval Lander. Once the sample cache is launched off the red planet, another spacecraft would capture it in Mars orbit, and then bring it back to Earth safely and securely in the early to mid-2030s. After the samples are on Earth, scientists around the world would examine them using sophisticated instruments too large and complex to send to Mars. The samples would remain available for future generations to study with increasingly advanced technologies. Scientists believe the samples could shed light on whether life has ever existed on Mars.

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Aeronautics Will Supply the Greek Ministry of Defense with Dozens of Advanced Orbiter 3 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems as Part of the Spike Missile Deal

Thursday, April 20th, 2023

The agreement is part of the significant G2G contract between the Israeli and Greek Ministries of Defense for the procurement of Rafael’s Spike missiles

17 April 2023, Aeronautics Ltd. – a world leader in designing, developing and manufacturing Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for global defense and HLS markets – announces a contract to supply dozens of its Orbiter 3 systems to the Greek Ministry of Defense. The agreement is part of the large contract between the Israeli and Greek Ministry of Defense, worth approximately 370 million euros, for the procurement of Rafael’s Spike missiles.

As part of the contract, Rafael will provide an advanced solution enabling significant operational advantage to the modern battlefield; While the Orbiter 3 systems detect, recognize and identify (DRI) the target, the Spike missiles, launched from the air, sea, or land can rapidly close the sensor-to-shooter loop, using the “Fire Weaver” C4I system. The rapid Sensor to Shooter process implementing advanced technologies, enables mission success.

The Orbiter 3 is a small tactical unmanned aerial system and considered to be one of the leading systems in its class worldwide providing superior performance for both defense and HLS applications. Highlights of the Orbiter 3 operational performance includes advanced ISTAR capabilities, runway-independent, long endurance, the capability of carrying various types of payloads, advanced image processing, a small logistical footprint, navigation including in a GPS-denied environment and the ability to withstand harsh weather conditions.

Dan Slasky, CEO of Aeronautics Group: “We are proud to be a part of this significant cooperation with Rafael in the G2G agreement with the Greek MOD. This collaboration demonstrates the technological synergy, and the close business integration between the two companies. We also thank the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which has invested significant efforts to facilitate the agreement, and to the Greek Ministry of Defense for expressing it’s confidence in the Aeronautics’ solution.”

aeronautics-sys.com

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GA-ASI Flies MQ-20 Avenger Autonomously Using LEO SATCOM Data Link

Wednesday, April 19th, 2023

SAN DIEGO – 11 April 2023 – On April 6, 2023, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) conducted live, tactical, air combat maneuvers using Artificial Intelligence (AI) pilots to control a company-owned MQ-20 Avenger® Unmanned Aircraft System. Collaborative maneuvers between human and AI pilots were conducted using GA-ASI’s Live, Virtual, Constructive (LVC) collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) ecosystem over a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communication (SATCOM) provider’s IP-based Mission Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) datalink. The LEO SATCOM connection was also used to rapidly retrain and redeploy AI pilots while the aircraft was airborne, demonstrating GA-ASI’s ability to update AI pilots within minutes.

This marks the first deployment of a LEO SATCOM provider connections running on an operationally relevant unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) platform. The team used two L3Harris Technologies RASOR Multi-Functional Processors (MFPs) – one that housed the transceiver card and another that controlled the BLOS Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA). The test aircraft was outfitted with a Ball Aerospace BLOS AESA system, capable of full duplex operation. The demonstration highlighted GA-ASI’s commitment to operationalizing CCA by fusing innovative future warfare technologies, such as GA-ASI’s AI pilots and LVC ecosystem, and L3Harris and Ball Aerospace BLOS datalink solutions.

“The flight demonstrated GA-ASI’s unmatched ability to fly autonomy on real, tactically relevant, unmanned combat aerial vehicles,” said GA-ASI Senior Director of Advanced Programs Michael Atwood. “It displayed effective BLOS Command and Control through the collaboration between three defense primes. This showcases our rapidly maturing CCA mission system suite and moves us one step closer to providing this revolutionary capability to the warfighter.”

GA-ASI leveraged its end-to-end CCA ecosystem for the flight that fused third-party capabilities, human-on-the-loop control, and autonomy to enable effective human-machine teaming for 21st century conflicts. Operator commands were captured via hands on throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) controls and were sent via LEO SATCOM to AI pilots running Reinforcement Learning (RL) algorithms. AI pilots autonomously tracked and maneuvered around dynamically, and updated entities specified via HOTAS. Operators were provided updates from AI pilots on a cockpit heads-up display and could dynamically re-task via HOTAS as the mission evolved. In addition, data from agent performance was collected and sent to the ground where agents were retrained to improve performance, and then redeployed via LEO SATCOM in a matter of minutes.

This is another in an ongoing series of technology insertion and autonomous flights performed using internal research and development funding to prove out important concepts for UAS.

www.ga-asi.com

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DroneShield Successfully Delivers $11 Million Order

Tuesday, April 18th, 2023

DroneShield Ltd (ASX:DRO) is pleased to advise it has successfully completed delivery of the all-time record purchase order of approximately $11 million for a Government agency customer announced on 21 December 2022. The delivery timing was in line with the original delivery timetable.

A substantial deposit for this order has been received in January and reflected in the 1Q23 cash receipts, with the balance payable 30 days after this recently completed delivery, to be reflected in the 2Q23 receipts.

DroneShield CEO, Oleg Vornik, commented: “On-time delivery of this order demonstrates DroneShield’s ability to rapidly scale its operations. With the recent $40 million record capital raise and the resulting proceeds into both inventory and further strengthening of operations and engineering side of the business, we are well placed to deliver on rapidly rising demand for counterdrone systems.”

Image: DroneGun Mk3 and RfPatrol Mk2

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DroneShield Selected to Feature in the 2023 Australian Defence Sales Catalogue

Sunday, April 9th, 2023

DroneShield is pleased to advise that it has been included in the 2023 Australian Defence Sales Catalogue, released this week.

Australian Military Sales (AMS) office will distribute copies of the Catalogue to foreign Embassies and Australian Defence Attachés around the world to promote Australian defence industry in the global arena. This is anticipated to commence in late April 2023.

Pat Conroy, Minister for Defence Industry, has commented, “The Albanese Government is committed to growing Australia’s defence exports, as well as supporting home-grown innovation, both of which are key to industry success.”

Oleg Vornik, DroneShield CEO, has added, “DroneShield is an Australian export success story, actively engaged in dozens of countries around the world, with the U.S. as our largest market, reflecting the close alignment between Australia and the United States. We are pleased to continue strengthening our work with the Australian Government as we continue to grow as a high technology defence exporter.”

Image: DroneShield DroneGunAdditional information about the Catalogue is available at www.adeoportal.defence.gov.au/dashboard.

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AeroVironment Introduces Switchblade 300 Block 20 Rapidly Deployable Loitering Missile System

Tuesday, March 28th, 2023

Building on AeroVironment’s tactical missile legacy, the Switchblade 300 Block 20 offers enhanced operational features and performance

AeroVironment’s new Switchblade 300 Block 20 builds upon the system’s battle proven performance. Credit: AeroVironment, Inc.

ARLINGTON, Va., March 28, 2023 – AeroVironment (NASDAQ: AVAV) today unveiled the newest version of its Switchblade® 300 rapidly deployable loitering missile system. The Switchblade 300 Block 20 builds on Block 10C’s battle-proven performance with new operational features and significant performance and capability improvements.

Switchblade 300 Block 20 is portable, lightweight, and easy to operate, requiring only a single operator. The new tablet-based Fire Control System allows operators to easily train, plan, and execute missions. Operation of the system is further simplified by offering an integrated control directly onto the launcher tube.

“Since pioneering the loitering missile category with Switchblade 300 more than a decade ago, our tactical missile systems have proven to be a game-changing capability for both U.S. and allied forces, providing a remarkably rapid, precise and effective way to address lethal threats,” said Brett Hush, AeroVironment’s vice president and product line general manager of tactical missile systems. “Switchblade 300 Block 20 will continue to build on the system’s battle-proven legacy.”

Weighing just under five pounds, this lightweight, precision-guided lethal missile can be deployed in less than two minutes via tube-launch from land, sea, or mobile platforms, providing greater mission flexibility. The Switchblade 300 Block 20 features a longer endurance, improved Digital Data Link (DDL) range, new EO/IR panning camera suite, and left-hand commit with continuous positive identification (PID). Like its predecessor, Switchblade 300 Block 20 maintains its patented wave-off capability, enabling the operator to recommit against moving targets in highly dynamic environments.

The Switchblade 300 Block 20 provides small expeditionary units with stand-alone precision and lethal effects with minimal collateral effects. Delivering 20-plus minutes of tactical reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition, the Switchblade 300 Block 20 provides real-time video for use against beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) targets. Cursor-on-Target GPS coordinates provide situational awareness, information collection, targeting and feature/object recognition, that together will deliver the actionable intelligence and precision firepower needed to achieve mission success across multiple domains.

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