SPECIAL FORCES LAND CARGO DRONE

The Marines many have a few GPS-​​guided para­chutes for air­drop­ping sup­plies. But U.S. Special Operations Command has gone sev­eral steps bet­ter, by order­ing up to 200 propeller-​​driven, cargo-​​carrying deliv­ery drones.
The SnowGoose unmanned aer­ial vehi­cle is “capa­ble of car­ry­ing up to 600 pounds in six bays, which can include a com­bi­na­tion of cargo, sur­veil­lance and sen­sor equip­ment, com­mu­ni­ca­tions links or other devices,” accord­ing to its maker, MMIST — the firm that’s also respon­si­ble for the made by the Sherpa GPS chute.
“Once deployed from air, land or sea, the SnowGoose can climb to greater than 18,000 feet, and can steer and nav­i­gate autonomously,” the com­pany claims. “The onboard, multiple-​​mission guid­ance sys­tem can be repro­grammed by satel­lite or line of sight data link dur­ing flight. It has a flight endurance of up to 20 hours or a max­i­mum cargo capac­ity of 600 lbs.“
Special Forces just signed a $10 mil­lion con­tract with MMIST for eigh­teen SnowGooses. But those num­bers could rise to $75 mil­lion and a cou­ple hun­dred drones, if all goes well with the ini­tial batch.

September 22nd, 2004 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.