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Airbus is designing a Mars rover to return soil samples
Back in April, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) agreed to figure out whether it's possible to bring Martian soil samples back to Earth. Now, the ESA has granted Airbus a $5.2 million contract to design a concept for a rover that can collect those samples on the red planet. The space agency has chosen Airbus' team in Stevenage, England, because they're already building the ExoMars rover that's scheduled to head to our neighboring planet in 2021. Unlike ExoMars and all its scientific instruments, the fetch rover's lone task is to find and collect the canisters of samples NASA's Mars 2020 rover prepares and leaves behind. However, that doesn't mean that designing the vehicle would be easy.
The newest ISS 'crew member' will be a flying robot with AI (updated)
A curious robot is heading to the ISS aboard the next SpaceX resupply mission. It's shaped like a ball with a flattened surface where its face is drawn on a screen -- plus, it can speak, respond to spoken commands and fly. The machine called CIMON, which is short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, is pretty much a flying IBM-developed brain with a body and flight mechanism created by Airbus. It's the companies' joint project with the German Aerospace Center and was created to be a hands-free assistant that can make astronauts' tasks easier.
Germany plans to test Airbus and Audi's flying taxi concept
The Pop.Up Next flying taxi from Airbus and Audi should soon become much more than a well-meaning concept. The German government has signed a letter of intent greenlighting tests for the flying taxi around Audi's home city of Ingolstadt. Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer saw the autonomous, mixed-mode transports bringing a "new dimension of mobility" and creating a "huge opportunity" for companies exploring flying car tech.
It’s too early to write off hydrogen vehicles
Hydrogen is either the wonder fuel of the future or a technological cul-de-sac. Toyota believes the former, and has spent the past few decades developing mass-market hydrogen cars. The automaker showcased what the technology can do, in the form of its Mirai Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV), which launched in 2015. But while its Mirai might be the most visible use of the technology, it's by no means the only place these engines can work.
Bill Gates, SoftBank and Airbus back plan to livestream the Earth
Exploring the planet from the comfort of your own home is nothing new -- Google Earth has largely cornered the market on that. But what if, instead of looking at static pictures of your own house, you could explore views of the entire planet, in real time? It sounds ambitious, but that's exactly what space imaging startup EarthNow aims to achieve.
Audi gives Airbus' flying taxi concept a stylish makeover
Did you think Airbus' Pop.Up flying taxi concept was a little drab? So did Audi. It teamed up with Airbus and Italdesign to unveil Pop.Up Next, a reworked version of the two-seat autonomous vehicle concept. The new version is more stylish than the mostly functional original, and borrows more than a few cues from Audi's current design language. However, it should also be more practical -- it's supposed to be "significantly" lighter than the original, which is rather important for a hybrid passenger drone.
New alliance wants to improve terrible in-flight internet
The frustrations of internet access aboard commercial aircraft may soon be a thing of the past, thanks to the Seamless Air Alliance. Formed by Airbus, Delta, OneWeb, Sprint and Airtel, the group aims to improve the connectivity experience for passengers aboard aircraft by allowing mobile operators to provide internet access directly via satellite tech.
Watch Airbus' drone taxi take to the skies for the first time
Back in late January, Airbus' Vahana team successfully flew their autonomous air taxi for the first time. Now, you can finally watch how the drone stayed in the air on its own in the video below the fold. It shows the aircraft hovering around 16 feet above the ground for a few seconds -- not particularly exciting if you're not enthused about the possibility of traveling aboard a single-passenger self-piloted taxi. But it was still a 53-second flight all on its own, without the input of a human operator.
Airbus' drone taxi takes to the skies for the first time
When Airbus first announced its plans to develop a self-flying taxi, it sounded like a fever dream of a sci-fi fan. Now, the aerospace giant has proven that it wasn't joking: Airbus' Vahana team have successfully flown their autonomous air taxi dubbed "Alpha One" for the first time. Sure, it only reached an altitude of 16 feet and remained in the air for 53 seconds before descending, but it did so while fully self-piloted. The team conducted another test flight the day after, and by the sound of things, that one also went well.
Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens team on a hybrid electric aircraft
Purely electric aircraft are still in their relative infancy. Hybrid aircraft, however? They're closer than you think. Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Siemens are partnering on a hybrid electric aircraft prototype, the E-Fan X, that will prove the mixture of conventional and electric engines will work. The demonstrator will modify a BAe 146 by replacing one of its gas turbine engines with a 2MW electric motor, followed by a second if everything goes smoothly. It's currently slated to fly sometime in 2020.
Airbus is ready to test its self-flying taxi
We've covered Airbus's Vahana project, which is the aeronautical company's endeavor to build a self-flying taxi network, in detail before. Now, it looks as though Airbus has reached a major milestone. The company is ready to test its Vahana flying car after moving it from the company's headquarters to a dedicated hangar in Pendleton, Oregon, as the Vahana team details in a blog post.
Airbus flying taxi concept on track to make first flight in 2018
It's 2017, and yes, the flying car might be coming -- but you probably won't drive it. European aviation giant Airbus claimed that the company's flying taxi concept is on track to make its first flight by the end of next year. While the first tests will be unmanned, the company plans to have humans pilot the four-person aircraft when it's planned to start flying in cities around 2023, before eventually transitioning to fully autonomous trips.
Passenger Drone lives up to its name with manned flight
There are quite a few companies working on developing drones for human transportation, but a new one has just jumped into the fray. With an almost fully developed prototype and plans to start producing them commercially next year, the aptly named Passenger Drone introduced itself by showing off a manned flight on its first prototype.
Perlan glider sets altitude record for unpowered flight
Gliders may be inherently limited by their nature (they're dependent on rising air currents), but that isn't stopping them from achieving feats normally reserved for their powered counterparts. The Perlan Project and Airbus have set a new record for engineless flight with Perlan 2, which flew to a lofty 52,172 feet -- well above the 50,727 feet the previous record holder (appropriately, Perlan 1) reached in 2006. The trick was to fly in the right place at the right time.
DARPA successfully flew a model of its 24-fan electric plane
DARPA's experimental Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft, the XV-24A LightningStrike, cleared another developmental hurdle by completing its subscale flight tests in early March, according to its manufacturer, Aurora Flight Sciences.
Airbus unveils an autonomous, modular flying car concept
Flying cars face many obstacles, but one of the biggest is accommodating all the parts needed to both drive and fly -- their designs amount to big, heavy compromises. Airbus and Italdesign want to try something different. They've just unveiled the Pop.Up, an autonomous concept that uses a modular passenger capsule to switch between four-wheeled ground transport and quadcopter flight. All you do is tell the vehicle's AI where to go -- it'll snap on air or ground modules based on both the available routes and your habits. Airbus even floats the possibility of shuttling your capsule through hyperloop tubes when they're available.
Six amazing all-electric motorcycles
By Cat DiStasio Zero-emissions cars are popping up left and right, but motorcycle design has been a little late to the game. Yet, all-electric motorcycles and are zooming down the streets in increasing numbers. With varying engine sizes, charging times and driving ranges, each new electric motorcycle that hits the market offers something unique. From far-out futuristic designs that look like something Batman would ride to bikes that could have driven off a Star Wars set, cutting-edge electric motorcycles have broken the early trend that suggested EVs ought to look like dorkier versions of their fossil fuel counterparts. Other electric motorcycles target ambitious performance standards -- from blistering top speeds to longer driving ranges and even some fun features like built-in LED effects.
Self-driving taxis and buses, and more in the week that was
The age of the self-driving car is finally here: Uber just announced plans to launch its first fleet of autonomous taxis this month, and self-driving buses are now hitting the streets of Helsinki. Airbus is shooting even higher with plans to build an autonomous flying taxi by the year 2017. Meanwhile, Nissan debuted a solid-oxide fuel-cell vehicle, which runs on ethanol and water instead of hydrogen. And Bosch rolled out a world's most compact folding electric bike, which packs down small enough to fit easily in a car trunk.
ICYMI: Segway's plan B and flexible concrete
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-2").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Segway came to Intel's Developer's Forum to show a prototype for a self-balancing scooter that is also a robot. If the public SDK works out well, Segway hopes to release a consumer version of whatever it becomes in 2017.
