Regional carrier Mokulele Airlines has been named the launch partner in Hawaii for Regent’s 12-passenger Viceroy seaglider, an electric wing-in-ground-effect transport for dock-to-dock overwater routes.
The inferiority of batteries as energy sources compared with aviation fuel is widely accepted. Yet electric aviation startups continue to push the envelope of what battery-powered aircraft can achieve.
With a design maximum takeoff weight of 1,400 kg (3,100 lb.), equivalent to a light general-aviation aircraft, the single-engine UAV made a 27-min. first flight on June 18.
Netherlands’ electric aircraft startup Venturi Aviation has closed a €3.4 million ($3.6 million) funding round and unveiled a new name, Maeve Aerospace.
SpaceX kicked off a trio of launches planned for June 17-19 by sending another bank of Starlink satellites into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 booster making its13th flight, a new company record.
Three months after emerging from so-called stealth mode, Impulse Space Propulsion, an in-orbit transfer services company founded by SpaceX co-founder Tom Mueller, has added $10 million to its initial fundraising. Lux Capital, a venture capital firm focused on emerging science and technology ventures that is familiar to aerospace startups, is investing in Impulse, bringing the latter’s total raised to date to $30 million.
UK-based Vertical Aerospace has appointed former European Union Aviation Safety Agency certification director Trevor Woods as its regulatory affairs director.
The UK’s Cranfield Aerospace Solutions plans to collaborate with German airline startup Evia Aero to launch hydrogen-electric-powered air services in Northern Europe.
A German startup plans to demonstrate the weight-saving structural integration of a battery system into a wing as the first step toward developing a nine-passenger all-electric regional airliner with a range of 270 nm.
