With a design maximum takeoff weight of 1,400 kg (3,100 lb.), equivalent to a light general-aviation aircraft, the single-engine UAV made a 27-min. first flight on June 18.
Netherlands’ electric aircraft startup Venturi Aviation has closed a €3.4 million ($3.6 million) funding round and unveiled a new name, Maeve Aerospace.
SpaceX kicked off a trio of launches planned for June 17-19 by sending another bank of Starlink satellites into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 booster making its13th flight, a new company record.
Three months after emerging from so-called stealth mode, Impulse Space Propulsion, an in-orbit transfer services company founded by SpaceX co-founder Tom Mueller, has added $10 million to its initial fundraising. Lux Capital, a venture capital firm focused on emerging science and technology ventures that is familiar to aerospace startups, is investing in Impulse, bringing the latter’s total raised to date to $30 million.
UK-based Vertical Aerospace has appointed former European Union Aviation Safety Agency certification director Trevor Woods as its regulatory affairs director.
The UK’s Cranfield Aerospace Solutions plans to collaborate with German airline startup Evia Aero to launch hydrogen-electric-powered air services in Northern Europe.
A German startup plans to demonstrate the weight-saving structural integration of a battery system into a wing as the first step toward developing a nine-passenger all-electric regional airliner with a range of 270 nm.
The flight, which marked the first time Roc had flown at altitudes required for effective launch trajectories of Stratolaunch’s Talon-A hypersonic test vehicle, lasted just over three hours.
By Carole Rickard Hedden, Michael Bruno, Graham Warwick
For new space and advanced air mobility startups, the past two years have been a heady experience of investment, mergers with special purpose acquisition companies and high-risk plays into segments of the aerospace and defense industry that were mere dreams a decade ago. As the economy changes, Aviation Week editors discuss what comes next.
As expected, the UK Civil Aviation Authority is to adopt the European Union Safety Agency’s Special Conditions for VTOL as the basis for UK certification of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
To list an event, send information in calendar format to Carole Rickard Hedden at [email protected]. For a complete list of Aviation Week Network’s upcoming events and to register, visit www.aviationweek.com/events.
GKN Aerospace says confidence is growing around its hybrid, hydrogen-electric aerospace propulsion solution the company is pursuing as part of its UK government-backed H2Gear research and technology project.
Boeing is modifying a 777-200ER into a testbed for 30 new technologies in the latest campaign of the company’s 10-year-long ecoDemonstrator evaluation program.
Launch startup Firefly Aerospace is rotating through another CEO as its recently installed private equity sponsors assert more control over the embattled new-space upstart.
