Do You Know Drones?

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Friday her government is supporting a new project using drones designed to monitor and protect the Maui dolphin, one of the world's rarest marine mammals.

Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California have received the first status report from the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which landed Feb. 18, 2021, at Jezero Crater attached to the belly of the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. The downlink, which arrived at 3:30 p.m. PST (6:30 p.m. EST) via a connection through the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, indicates that both the helicopter, which will remain attached to the rover for 30 to 60 days, and its base station (an electrical box on the rover that stores and routes communications between the rotorcraft and Earth) are operating as expected.

Drone delivery on golf courses is gaining momentum quickly because of COVID-19 limiting in-person interaction.  Earlier this week, AgEagle and Valqari demonstrated an innovative drone delivery system to officials at the Sun City Country Club about 30 minutes NW of Phoenix, AZ.

Even basketball legend, Michael Jordan, has implemented drone delivery on his ultra-exclusive golf course in South Florida, Grove 23.

2021 has already seen a bunch of records for drone delivery company, Zipline.  They expanded from delivering blood to a wide variety of medical supplies in 2020 and have now delivered over 1,000,000 doses of vaccines.  They also hit 10,000,000 km flown in operations and signed a new contract with Nigeria.

Researchers in China have moved one step closer to making the quantum internet a reality. Using two drones and two ground stations, a team of scientists has successfully beamed entangled photons across a distance of 0.6 miles (1 km). The experiment demonstrates the potential of a mobile quantum network, whereby encrypted information could be sent more securely than the internet we know today.

I have questions about drone insurance.  What is it?  How does it work?  What's covered?  Do I need it?  Today, we chat with Yuval Caspi, a Broker with Skywatch.AI, for a deep dive into the mysterious world of drone insurance.

Welcome to Drone Mapping 101 - Orthomosaics  

Join me, a Drone Scientist, each week for a new lesson.  We will cover GCPs, Point Clouds, RTK/PPK, NDVI, Thermography, and more fundamentals of GIS and Remote Sensing.   Designed for commercial drone pilots that want to take their service to the next level!  

This lesson is sponsored by Skywatch.AI drone insurance (www.skywatch.ai)

One of the advantages of this year's all-digital CES was a whole new level of on-demand exhibitor access.  During the GM Keynote, CEO Mary Barra unveiled some advanced mobility concepts including the Cadillac VTOL - Vertical Takeoff and Landing.  I know that I'm ready for zero emissions, zero congestion, and zero crashes.  What do you think?

Flying at night is already difficult. Follow these mitigations and you'll stay in top form during night flights. 

Now that the rulings for Remote ID and Operations Over People have been finalized by the FAA, we should concentrate on what ALL drone pilots need to know.  Night operations are necessary for many applications, but they have nuances that daytime operations just don't have.