AeroVironment

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

In combination, the ACT and ORIENT programs are addressing underlying challenges with operating thousands of autonomous systems across all domains.

The use of high-end air defenses and other munitions in the Middle East and the supplying of Ukraine are affecting the U.S. military readiness in the Pacific.

Drone manufacturer AeroVironment will purchase defense tech company BlueHalo in an all-stock deal valued at $4.1 billion.

Next steps for wake surfing; measuring e-SAF emissions; solar stratospheric UAS upgrade; and uncrewed medical eVTOL.

The Horus A is intended for government applications such as surveillance, communications relay, backing up GPS and even space domain awareness.

The U.S. Air Force has proposed a high-altitude balloon program as an option for the broader Replicator initiative to accelerate new autonomous systems.

The U.S. State Department approved Taiwan to acquire more than 1,000 loitering munitions from both AeroVironment and Anduril.

The Pentagon’s advanced research agency has selected six teams to develop preliminary designs for a shipborne VTOL uncrewed aircraft.

DARPA has selected six of nine concepts studied under Phase 1A of the Ancillary program to proceed into the 10-month Phase 1B.

AeroVironment plans to test a long-endurance flight of its Horus high-altitude pseudo satellite, as it pitches its modular payload for military missions.

The Pentagon’s pick of AeroVironment’s Switchblade 600 in the Replicator program allows the company to increase its manufacturing capacity to meet demand.

The Pentagon for the first time provided additional information on May 6 on what systems it is buying under a new initiative called Replicator.

The U.S. Army announced April 24 that it awarded options to both Griffon Aerospace and Textron Systems to conduct flight demonstrations for its Future Tactical Uncrewed Aircraft System (FTUAS) program.

AeroVironment has launched its new Autonomy Retrofit Kit for its small, fixed-wing UAVs such as the Puma 3AE or Puma LE.

Aalto HAPS has purchased Ampirus Technologies’ 450 Wh/kg SiMaxx lithium-ion cells for its stratospheric Zephyr UAV.

Amprius Technologies has formally opened its “megawatt hour” lithium-ion battery manufacturing line expansion in Fremont, California.

From leaf blower to quiet drone; Stratospheric 5G; Amazon’s new delivery drone; SAF burns cleaner.

UAV-maker envisions pushing decisions to frontline soldiers, autonomous weapons.

AeroVironment makes two loitering munitions: the anti-personnel Switchblade 300 and the anti-armored vehicle Switchblade 600.

Featuring wingfold design similar to the AeroVironment Switchblade 600, Taiwanese company Hutron's H2B weighs 33 lb. (15 kg), including an 11-lb. warhead.

AeroVironment plans to buy Tomahawk Robotics, a developer of software and hardware to control multiple tactical uncrewed air and ground vehicles at once.

Low Altitude Stalking and Striking Ordnance (LASSO) will be the subject of a three-day “Industry Day” event.

Enabling contrail avoidance; hybrid regional demonstrator; next-generation HAPS; and quantum computing for R&D.

The low-altitude flight test was conducted at Willcox Playa, Arizona, on March 14.