The mission, Cygnus NG-21, is the space agency’s 21st commercial ISS resupply mission using the uncrewed Cygnus capsule built by contractor Northrop Grumman, which took over the spacecraft’s development after acquiring manufacturer Orbital ATK in 2018.

Cygnus spacecraft have completed nine missions under the company’s Commercial Resupply Services Phase 2 (CRS-2) contract with NASA and are scheduled for missions through 2026 after the agreement was extended in 2022. The total value of the CRS-2 contracts, which were also awarded to SpaceX and Sierra Space, is capped at $14 billion.

Cygnus’ 21st flight is targeted to launch at 11:28 a.m. EDT on Saturday from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The spacecraft is called the S.S. Richard “Dick” Scobee in honor of the astronaut who died while commanding the Space Shuttle Challenger.

Cygnus will arrive at the orbital laboratory on Monday, where NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick will use the ISS’ robotic arm to capture it with NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps serving as backup.

Carrying more than 8,200 pounds of supplies, the uncrewed spacecraft will launch atop SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket for the second time after Northrop Grumman’s supply of Antares rockets, which rely on parts from Russia and Ukraine, was exhausted.

After docking to the ISS for six months, the expendable capsule in January will depart the space station and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

NASA will host a prelaunch media session on Friday followed by launch coverage on Saturday and arrival coverage on Monday, all of which will be on the agency’s website, app, and YouTube channel.

The Cygnus capsule will carry research materials that will directly support experiments under NASA’s ISS Expeditions 71 and 72.

One test, for example, will use a penny, hex nut, and balloons to demonstrate centripetal force in microgravity. Researchers will also use special machines to produce human tissue and stem cells, test the effects of spaceflight on DNA, and study the movement of gas and liquid through a filter in zero gravity.

In total, the spacecraft will carry nearly 2,800 pounds worth of materials for scientific investigations, as well as 95 pounds worth of spacewalk equipment and two CubeSat satellites to be deployed from the ISS.

Cygnus spacecraft so far have delivered more than 138,000 pounds of equipment, science experiments, and supplies to the space station, according to Northrop Grumman.

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The regulator on Tuesday authorized commercial drone flights without visual observers (VOs) in Dallas-area airspace for two companies: Zipline and Wing, the drone delivery subsidiary of Google parent Alphabet. The firms will manage the airspace themselves with FAA oversight.

“The industry is providing us with a lot of detailed documentation, and we’re providing a lot of oversight,” said Jarrett Larrow, regulatory and policy lead at the FAA’s Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Office. “These public-private partnerships are key to safely integrating drones into our National Airspace System.”

Both Zipline and Wing have robust drone delivery services in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in partnership with Walmart. But limiting the firms is a pesky regulation called the beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) rule, which limits drone operations to within the drone operator’s field of view of the operator.

The FAA is working to release the Normalizing UAS BVLOS Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which would authorize drone operators to fly aircraft where they cannot physically see them. It expects to finalize the measure this year.

But in lieu of a firm rule, the regulator awards BVLOS permissions on a case-by-case basis through waivers. Typically, these exemptions require the companies to maintain VOs along delivery routes to monitor their drones. However, a handful of companies have been able to replace VOs with proprietary or third-party detect and avoid systems or UAS traffic management (UTM) software.

Without these permissions, drone delivery companies are greatly limited in the scope of their operations, which, in order to keep eyes on the aircraft at all times, are often constricted to small areas.

The new FAA authorization seeks to change that, at least in the Dallas area.

Beginning in August, Zipline and Wing will be allowed to deliver packages using UTM technology to keep their drones from colliding. In short, airspace would be managed by private companies with FAA oversight.

“This is the first time the FAA has recognized a third-party to safely manage drone-to-drone interactions,” said Praveen Raju, a program manager in the FAA’s NextGen Office. “As always, safety comes first, and we required exhaustive research and testing before giving the green light.”

Zipline and Wing will use UTM to share flight data and routes with other airspace users, with all flights occurring below 400 feet agl and far away from crewed aircraft. Consensus standards developed by the drone industry and accepted by the FAA describe how the technology can accommodate multiple layers of drone operations, according to the regulator.

The agency also said that Zipline and Wing since 2023 have safely conducted thousands of live drone test flights in shared Dallas-area airspace. Now, commercial flights are expected to provide the FAA with valuable information that could allow it to expand BVLOS operations without special exemptions nationwide.

The regulator on Tuesday said companies and organizations worldwide have shown interest in the project and how they can install their own UTM systems in the U.S.

“UTM is a critical piece for safe, routine, scalable BVLOS operations and to ensure everyone has equitable access to the airspace,” Larrow said. “If service providers and operators are successful in cooperatively sharing the airspace using UTM, it will be a repeatable process nationwide.”

Zipline and Wing were among the first drone delivery firms to obtain Part 135 operator permissions from the FAA and have worked closely with the regulator for years. Should the agency continue to look to the companies to pilot BVLOS operations, it may add permissions to their service areas in other states such as Arkansas, Utah, and Virginia.

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Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner—a semireusable spacecraft under a multibillion-dollar contract with NASA for Commercial Crew rotation missions to the ISS—underwent a hot fire test on Saturday intended to evaluate the capsule’s reaction control system (RCS) thrusters. The vessel is in the midst of its crewed flight test (CFT), which is intended to be its final mission before NASA certifies it for service.

On its way to the orbital laboratory, five of Starliner’s RCS thrusters failed to perform as expected, which, coupled with a series of helium leaks, has led NASA and Boeing to keep the spacecraft at the ISS for further testing both on the ground and in orbit. The issues are traced to the spacecraft’s service module, which, unlike the semireusable crew module, will be jettisoned and lost at the end of the mission.

Starliner had already undergone one on-orbit hot fire test in June. According to Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, all thrusters, except for one which has been shut down, performed at 80 to 100 percent during that test. Stich in July said the space agency continues to hold that assessment.

However, it appears the test was not satisfactory for NASA and Boeing, which last month began hot fire ground testing at White Sands Test Facility Test Facility in New Mexico. The campaign is using an identical thruster to recreate the cadence of Starliner’s thrusters during its docking with the ISS, which engineers believe is the maneuver that caused the issue.

As part of those evaluations, officials suggested there could be a second hot fire test of Starliner on orbit, which came to fruition Saturday. With Wilmore and Williams inside the spacecraft, teams fired 27 of the service module’s 28 RCS thrusters one at a time.

The test showed that all thrusters are back to preflight levels, firing at 97 to 102 percent of peak thrust according to Boeing. In addition, engineers confirmed that helium leak rates remain stable and that the spacecraft has more than enough fuel for its return trip.

Boeing predicted that a flight test readiness review will take place by the end of this week, following which teams will select a return date. Wilmore and Williams will also participate in two undocking simulations during the week in preparation for their homecoming.

The astronauts in July gave their first Earth-to-orbit update since arriving at the ISS, saying they are in good spirits and have been in contact with their families.

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Conspicuously missing from the Senate’s fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (FY25 NDAA), though, is an amendment that would effectively ban new Chinese drone models from flying in U.S. skies.

The Countering CCP Drones Act made it into the House version of the FY25 NDAA, which passed in June with a vote of 217-199 and was largely backed by Republicans. But when contemplating its addition to the Senate legislation, lawmakers reportedly dropped the measure after hearing from over 6,000 public safety agencies that opposed the measure.

The bill is not dead yet, however. Last week, Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) introduced an amendment to the FY25 NDAA, cosponsored by Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.), that puts the Countering CCP Drones Act back on the table in committee discussions.

Even if the amendment is rejected in the Senate, it could resurface in reconciliations between the Senate and House due to its inclusion in the latter’s version of the NDAA.

The Countering CCP Drones Act is the culmination of U.S. government efforts to restrict Chinese-manufactured drones from dominating the country’s drone industry. Lawmakers have also accused the Chinese Communist Party of using the aircraft to spy on Americans, citing its ties to state-owned entities. At present, there is no conclusive evidence to verify the claims, and manufacturers such as DJI have pushed back on the allegations.

Chinese drones have been blacklisted by the Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, Department of the Treasury, and other federal agencies. The states too have taken aim at the aircraft, with Arkansas and Scott’s home state of Florida implementing the most sweeping bans.

One significant drone-related provision, the bipartisan American Security Drone Act, made it into last year’s NDAA. That measure prohibits U.S. federal agencies and federally funded programs from procuring drones manufactured in China or Russia.

Adding to the fervor, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security released a report detailing the threat of Chinese drones shortly after the NDAA was signed into law.

The Countering CCP Drones Act that will be contemplated by the Senate targets two manufacturers in particular, DJI and Autel. Those firms, and any subsidiaries, partners, or affiliates, would be added to the Federal Communications Commission’s covered list—essentially a list of companies with which the U.S. government refuses to do business.

The companies’ addition to the covered list would not impact DJI and Autel drones already being flown by hobbyists or private companies, for example. However, it would prevent the FCC from authorizing new equipment and prohibit newly sold drones from using U.S. communications infrastructure, effectively banning all sales in the country.

The legislation was first introduced in 2022 by Scott and Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in the Senate and by Representative Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) in the House.

After failing to move it forward, Stefanik in 2023 reintroduced the bill in the House, pushing successfully for its inclusion in the House NDAA released in June. That month, the measure was also reintroduced in the Senate but did not receive enough support to be added to that chamber’s version of the bill.

DJI drones in particular are widely deployed by U.S. law enforcement and public safety agencies, who opposed the restrictions because other models are typically more expensive and less effective. Police departments in states that have not banned Chinese drones are continuing to buy them in droves.

Their efforts may be for naught, though, if the Senate is receptive to Scott’s amendment. Even if senators reject it, the measure’s inclusion in the House version of the NDAA could give it new life in the reconciliation process.

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The Canadian Olympic Committee is appealing a decision by the FIFA Appeal Committee to dock the team six points in the Paris Olympic Games soccer competition’s group stage—effectively dashing the team’s hopes of advancing to the knockout stage—over allegations of filming the practices of its first opponent, New Zealand.

The scandal has several layers, with various reports alleging Canada has used drones to spy on other teams’ practices for years, including the U.S. men’s and women’s teams. Multiple Canada Soccer staffers, including women’s head coach Bev Priestman, have either stepped aside or been suspended for the remainder of the Olympic Games.

Carla Qualtrough, Canada’s minister of sport and physical activity, even released a statement on the incident, calling it “deeply regrettable.”

Here’s everything you need to know:

Eyes in the Sky

On July 23, the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) in a statement said a drone was flown over the team’s training grounds in Saint Etienne, France.

French police identified the drone operator as Joseph Lombardi, a support staff member for the Canadian women’s team. After admitting to spying, Lombardi was sentenced to 18 months in prison by a French prosecutor’s office on Wednesday.

While spying on another team’s practice wouldn’t win the match for Canada, it could provide coaches with inside information on tactics, such as during highly strategized free kick situations.

“The NZOC and New Zealand Football are committed to upholding the integrity and fairness of the Olympic Games and are deeply shocked and disappointed by this incident, which occurred just three days before the sides are due to face each other in their opening game of Paris 2024,” the NZOC said in its statement.

Also on July 24, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) said it had learned of a second drone spying incident at another New Zealand practice, leading it to suspend Lombardi and an assistant coach.

“The Canadian Olympic Committee stands for fair play, and we are shocked and disappointed,” the COC said. “We offer our heartfelt apologies to New Zealand Football, to all the players affected, and to the New Zealand Olympic Committee.”

In addition, Priestman, who led the Canada squad to a gold medal match win over Sweden at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, decided to step aside from coaching the team’s opening game—a 2-1 win over New Zealand on Thursday—amid the opening of an investigation by FIFA.

“I am absolutely heartbroken for the players, and I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for the impact this situation has had on all of them,” Priestman said in a statement. “I know how hard they have worked following a very difficult year in 2023, and that they are a group of people who care very much about sportsmanship and integrity. As the leader of the team on the field, I want to take accountability, and I plan to fully cooperate with the investigation.”

Down the Rabbit Hole

On Friday, Priestman was suspended for the remainder of the 2024 Olympics by Canada Soccer, which said that the scandal runs much deeper.

Kevin Blue, CEO and general secretary of the organization, said Canadian teams have been using drones to spy on opponents even before Paris.

“Over the past 24 hours, additional information has come to our attention regarding previous  drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games,” Blue said in a statement.

Sources told Canada’s TSN, which is partially owned by ESPN, that Canada Soccer staffers used drones to spy on other teams’ closed-door practices even during the team’s gold medal-winning Tokyo Olympics run. The sources also allege drones were used to film Panama and Honduras women’s team practices after those Games.

One source told TSN that staffers were told they could lose their jobs if they did not comply with requests to film other practices. In one case, a contractor, who was scheduled to fly to Australia for the 2023 World Cup, had their trip canceled because they refused a demand to record opponents. A Canada Soccer staffer flew in their stead to capture the video, the source alleges.

TSN also said it reviewed text messages from a women’s soccer coach about secretly filming opponents from Costa Rica, South Korea, and Trinidad and Tobago in 2022.

An ESPN report on Saturday added to the scandal, with sources connected to U.S. Soccer telling the outlet that Canada’s drone-spying incident is not an outlier. The sources recounted several incidents of alleged spying on both the U.S. women’s and men’s soccer teams as recently as the 2024 Copa América tournament, as well as on other countries’ squads.

Another ESPN report alleges that the scandal goes all the way to the top, with Priestman and another coach having been aware of Canada Soccer’s covert use of drones for years, either before or after the fact.

It is possible, if unlikely, that the Canadian team’s gold medal in Tokyo could be revoked following FIFA’s investigation, according to COC CEO David Shoemaker.

Keeping Drones Out of Sports

The sporting world more widely has faced its fair share of drone-related woes as the buzzing aircraft begin to proliferate.

The NFL, for example, is contending with thousands of unauthorized drone flights over games and practices every season, to the point where the FAA has been forced to step in. The NFL, MLB, NCAA, and NASCAR have all backed a congressional bill that would grant government and law enforcement officials more power to jam or take down rogue aircraft.

A potentially bigger issue, though, is preventing those flights from happening in the first place. Stakeholders have struggled to find an answer despite the FAA creating temporary flight restrictions around games and practices for most major U.S. sports leagues.

Regulations, such as the FAA’s remote ID rule, will help federal and regional agencies keep an eye on the drones with digital license plates. But at present there is little recourse to actually prevent a drone from flying into stadium airspace.

The issue is one the U.S.—and Canada, evidently—will need to address as more drones take to the skies.

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After completing the world’s first electric air taxi flights in Guangzhou and Hefei in December, EHang on Sunday made debut passenger carrying flights in the city of Taiyuan.

The trips, completed using EHang’s self-flying EH216-S air taxi, follow the company’s delivery of 10 aircraft to Xishan Tourism, which in May signed a purchase order for 50 units. The companies have a tentative agreement for EHang to deliver 450 aircraft over the next two years, with an eye toward launching aerial tourism and sightseeing services across North China.

“We have gradually delivered EH216-S by batches to Taiyuan, Hefei, Wuxi, Wencheng, Zhuhai, and other places, and are actively assisting our local partners who are creating application scenarios to obtain [air operator certification],” said Zhao Wang, chief operating officer of EHang.

EHang received its own air operator certificate last week from China’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAAC).

The province of Shanxi, in which Taiyuan is located, has been designated by the Chinese government as a national demonstration province for the country’s low-altitude economy, an analog to the advanced air mobility (AAM) industry forming in the U.S. and elsewhere. Taiyuan is the region’s capital and largest city and is considered a political and economic center.

The measure subsidizes regular, low-altitude tourism flights in the region, as well as the construction of infrastructure and other capabilities needed for routine service.

“Taiyuan is a national civil unmanned aerial vehicle test zone, with the foundation and advantages to develop the aviation industry, and will actively seize the lead in the emerging low-altitude economy industry,” said Jicheng Yang, executive vice mayor of Taiyuan and a member of the city’s municipal committee. “Taiyuan will enhance policy support, essential guarantees, and innovation capabilities, and promote the deep integration of technological innovation and the low-altitude economy.”

Xishan Tourism plans to use the designation to launch low-altitude sightseeing and tourism routes to local sites such as Yuquan Mountain, Paddy Field Park, and Juewei Mountain.

On Sunday, two EH216-S aircraft, carrying two passengers each, took off and flew autonomously from Paddy Field Park in a ceremony attended by regional government officials and industry experts. Two of the passengers were officials within the newly formed Taiyuan Xishan Ecological Tourism Demonstration Zone.

Xishan Tourism, though, said it is still working toward “regular operation”—in other words, the flights are not yet routine, as is the case in Guangzhou and Hefei.

“Xishan Tourism plans to collaborate with EHang and other partners on low-altitude scenarios of air mobility, tourism, and public services to establish multiple flight camps or landing pads, alongside various low-altitude sightseeing routes for pilotless eVTOL within Taiyuan and nearby scenic areas,” said Yaozong Chang, chairman of Xishan Tourism. “We aim to build an urban low-altitude tourism mobility network and a new urban air traffic management system, and to establish a low-altitude economy industrial park.”

EHang at the event also demonstrated its longer-range, passenger-carrying VT-30, firefighting EH216-F, and EH216-L for cargo logistics.

All four aircraft were on display in the Middle East in May, when the manufacturer completed that region’s first passenger carrying eVTOL flights in the United Arab Emirates.

The company’s flagship EH216-S is the first and only eVTOL design to receive type certification from a national aviation regulator, the CAAC. The regulator in December also handed the EH216-S the world’s first eVTOL airworthiness certification and in April gave the green light for EHang to begin mass manufacturing the model.

That puts the company well ahead of competitors in the U.S. such as Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation, which are building piloted air taxis but have yet to obtain any of those three approvals. Both companies are targeting commercial rollouts in 2025.

Like EHang, Boeing air taxi subsidiary Wisk Aero is building a self-flying design but does not expect it to fly commercially until the end of the decade.

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The approval will allow SpaceX to stay on schedule with its Crew-9 mission to rotate astronauts at the International Space Station (ISS), which NASA officials on Friday said is planned for no earlier than August 18.

Falcon 9 was grounded by the FAA following a rare mishap during a July 11 launch of Starlink satellites, its first failure after a streak of more than 300 successful missions.

SpaceX on Thursday shed more light on the incident. The company traced the anomaly to a cracked sense line that created a liquid oxygen leak within the rocket’s second stage engine. This caused ignition fluid to freeze, preventing the engine from performing a burn that would have placed the satellites in a circular orbit.

Despite the issue, SpaceX said, the engine continued operating as intended through both of its planned burns, but all 20 satellites were lost.

The FAA swiftly grounded Falcon 9 as is standard whenever a launch does not go according to plan. SpaceX submitted a mishap report on the night of the anomaly.

Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew program, said Friday that “SpaceX went above and beyond” in its assessment of the issue, working with NASA to develop a fault tree, review spacecraft telemetry, analyze video, and search for similar issues on other Falcon models.

The company has opted to remove the faulty sense line, which is redundant and not a part of the spacecraft’s safety system, for near-term Falcon 9 launches. It also agreed upon several corrective actions with the FAA that will be detailed in the coming days.

The FAA must still give a final sign-off for Crew-9 to launch, but the blessing to return to flight should allow SpaceX to meet its mission timeline. Stich on Friday said Crew-9 will launch no earlier than August 18 from Launch Complex 39-A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the launch window extending into September.

The mission represents the fourth flight of this particular Falcon. It will launch SpaceX’s Crew Dragon on its 45th mission to the ISS. Once onboard, four crewmembers will spend six months conducting a range of experiments, including studying the physics of neutron stars and the behavior of wildfires on Earth.

The ISS’ two docking ports are occupied by SpaceX’s Crew-8 Dragon capsule and Boeing’s Starliner, the latter of which will need to make way for Crew-9. Complicating matters, however, is the unexpected extension of Starliner’s inaugural crew flight test (CFT), which has left astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard the orbital laboratory for nearly two months.

Sources told Ars Technica’s Eric Berger that NASA is considering sending Crew-9 to the ISS with only two astronauts, theoretically making room for Wilmore and Williams to hitch a ride home on SpaceX’s Dragon rather than Starliner.

The scenario is one NASA hopes to avoid. Officials stopped short of calling it a requirement for certification but said that returning the astronauts home on Starliner rather than Dragon is “important” to the program’s goals. According to Stich, teams have finished an approximately monthlong test of Starliner’s thrusters and are working toward a flight readiness review, expected toward the end of next week.

However, Stich also said that NASA has officially handed over the Starliner’s first mission—which was double booked for early next year—to SpaceX. The flight, Starliner-1, will be pushed to no earlier than August 2025, while Falcon 9 and Dragon handle the agency’s tenth commercial crew rotation in February. Starliner-1 will again be double booked with SpaceX Crew-11.

Though SpaceX’s Falcon woes haven’t derailed Crew-9, they may shake up NASA’s busy ISS manifest. The agency is working toward an August 3 launch of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus, followed by an August 13 Roscosmos launch. Crew-9 would be next, followed by SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, originally scheduled for this month.

Beyond that, NASA wants to make a Soyuz ISS crew exchange in September, launch the Europa Clipper probe in October, and facilitate the Axiom-4 private astronaut mission in November.

Given the rapid turnaround following Falcon 9’s rare mishap, Boeing’s Starliner may be a larger culprit than SpaceX in any future delays.

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At the Farnborough International Airshow in the U.K., Eve unveiled its first full-scale eVTOL air taxi prototype, assembled at Embraer’s test facility in Brazil’s São Paulo state.

In the U.S., Archer Aviation was the first to hit that milestone, followed shortly after by Joby Aviation and Overair. German eVTOL manufacturers Lilium and Volocopter each have rolled out full-scale prototypes as well, as has China’s EHang.

Eve’s 100 percent electric design now joins them. The lift-plus-cruise model is built to fly up to four passengers and a pilot on 60 sm (52 nm) air taxi routes in and around major cities. It will be piloted at launch, but the company intends to transition to uncrewed operations in the future.

The air taxi includes eight dedicated propellers for vertical flight and fixed wings for cruise, as well as an electric pusher powered by dual electric motors.

Eve seeks to introduce the aircraft commercially in 2026, in line with many of its competitors. The company received proposed airworthiness criteria, a key step toward that goal, from Brazil’s National Civil Aviation Agency (ANAC) in December.

“Our global team of engineers have shown exceptional dedication and expertise to successfully assemble our first full-scale eVTOL prototype,” said Johann Bordais, CEO of Eve. “This is a significant milestone that underscores our commitment to safety, accessibility and innovation.”

Eve is building its flagship air taxi using components and systems from a massive network of suppliers, and it announced two more at Farnborough: Diehl Aviation will design the eVTOL’s interior, while electric aerospace systems provider ASE will supply a power distribution system. Other Eve suppliers include Honeywell, Thales, Garmin, and BAE Systems.

On Tuesday at the airshow, the manufacturer announced another key collaborator, the smart infrastructure arm of technology conglomerate Siemens. The partners will work to gauge just how much energy an eVTOL network will require, as well as the best way to get that energy into the aircraft.

“The results and insights that Siemens and Eve Air Mobility will gain from this collaborative effort are expected to inform our strategy in preparing the ecosystem and developing services at scale for customers in the U.S. and, potentially, around the world,” said Luiz Mauad, vice president of customer services at Eve.

Eve last year announced the site of its first eVTOL manufacturing plant, where it intends to produce as many as 480 aircraft annually. Per the manufacturer’s fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report in March, it has an order pipeline of 2,850 aircraft, with the total value of nonbinding orders exceeding $8 billion.

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Electra picked Honeywell to provide the flight control computers and electromechanical actuators for its nine-passenger eSTOL design. In addition, Honeywell said it made a “strategic financial investment” in Electra, the value of which was not disclosed.

“Our ability to preintegrate multiple subsystems will not only help reduce the time it takes to install and integrate these technologies, but it will also enable Electra to expedite and streamline production of its groundbreaking eSTOL aircraft,” said Dave Shilliday, president of Honeywell Aerospace Technologies’ advanced air mobility (AAM) arm.

The company’s AAM business has racked up $10 billion worth of contracts and added customers such as Lilium, Boom Supersonic, and Heart Aerospace.

Electra’s flagship model makes use of a unique blown lift propulsion system, which redirects airflows downward to enable takeoffs at neighborhood driving speeds. The hybrid-electric design is expected to require just 150 feet of runway, with no electric chargers necessary. The manufacturer seeks to achieve certification under FAA Part 23 regulations by 2028.

Honeywell’s compact fly-by-wire flight control computer, which it describes as the “brains” of the aircraft, will be a key piece of Electra’s full-scale model. It is a fraction of the size and weight of typical computers on larger aircraft, the company says, drawing less power by comparison. The technology is intended to reduce turbulence by dynamically adjusting the eSTOL’s electric motors, replacing hydraulics and control cables.

The electromechanical actuators are similarly light and compact despite having 10 percent greater power density than most other actuators on the market, by Honeywell’s estimate. These take electronic commands from the pilot or onboard flight system, convert them to mechanical force, and use it to move control surfaces such as flaps.

The agreement to supply the two components was accompanied by an undisclosed investment from Honeywell Ventures, the firm’s venture capital arm.

“The investment supports collaboration between the two companies, reinforcing Honeywell’s commitment to advanced air mobility and the future of sustainable flight,” Honeywell said Wednesday.

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On Wednesday at the Farnborough International Airshow in the U.K., the company announced it received a preorder for 100 Integrity air taxis from Australia’s Wilbur Air, a recently launched operating subsidiary of eVTOL infrastructure specialist Skyportz.

Skyportz has been developing a network of vertiports—akin to heliports but with electric chargers for eVTOL aircraft—to be built across Australia for the past half decade. Wilbur, which also has plans to fly U.S. manufacturer Electra’s hybrid-electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) aircraft, will operate Crisalion’s Integrity across that network.

The zero-emission air taxi, designed to seat as many as five passengers plus a pilot, has an expected range of 80 sm (70 nm) when cruising at about 70 knots with a payload of around 880 pounds.

Its calling card is the company’s FlyFree propulsion system, which comprises 16 motors arranged in two arms on either side of the aircraft and running on lithium-ion batteries.

“Each arm can independently adjust its thrust vector in both pitch and roll, using the differential thrust of the motors,” Crisalion said.

The firm says the patented design is meant to boost stability across phases of flight, including in adverse weather.

Additionally, the aircraft’s interior can be configured to support passenger transport, aerial tourism, logistics, and emergency situations.

Crisalion expects to certify Integrity in 2028 ahead of a 2030 commercial rollout. Wednesday’s preorder agreement is the company’s first in the Australian market.

Skyportz on its website displays a large map of potential hubs in its planned vertiport network, which includes several locations in Europe, Latin America, and the U.S. Those markets may be the next to see Integrity fly under the partnership.

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