UN Falco Drone (Selex ES) Helps Shipwreck Rescue, Saves Lives
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Neocons are more dangerous than standing armies

Thales Alenia Space stakes claim on UK
The company is deeply involved in defence as prime contractor for the French Syracuse (I, II and III) and the Italian Sicral (1, 1B, 2) telecommunication systems as well as for the Italian Earth Observation systems COSMO-SkyMed and Second Generation COSMO-SKYMED.

Italian Vega launcher places earth observation satellite for Kazakhstan into orbit.
KazEOSat-1 will provide Kazakhstan with very high-resolution data, including for mapping and security applications.
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Selex ES signs contract with AIROD for the supply and support of equipment on Navy Super Lynx MK100 helicopters

You are absolutely right, NEUROn is only e technology demonstrator. It’s successor should be the EFCAS, jointly built with BAE (and possibly others). Neuron simply can’t be piloted remorely, the AI pilots and operators just validate flight phases. For this vido for ex, FCS was in “stealthy” mode (very slightly moving part) otherwise the agility (i mean time to bank) of the drone is too high for human piloted planes to follow. The risky part is the drone has self adaptation capabilities (for ex, if the engine was to stop, the drone would dive to restart it, or if there is a critical failure, the drone will decide by itself to go back and land home) that had to be managed.
More vidoes are to come, (making of next week for ex.), with more manoeuvers.
Btw, there were two aircrafts other to take the video.

Doing all this in real-time is no mean feat. Very impressive indeed!

formation flying

“…This was the first time in the world that a combat drone flew in formation with other aircraft…”

In this video, from November of last year, you can see the Piaggio P.1HH Hammerhead being escorted by MB.339 aircraft. At around 2:40 and 3:05 in the video it would also seem that they are formation flying.
Arming the Hammerhead will be the last stage of development, and Piaggio Aero expects the aircraft will enter service in 2015.

Spending lot`s money on something that`s marginally better (smaller splash zone/partial re-usability)and calling it money for nothing is not “jaw dropping stupid” in fact far from it.On this very forum some people have equated Nelson Mandela with …wait for it… Himmler-and thats just a little example

Read the article first. There is no “marginally better” or “smaller splash zone”. The article states “The craft is robotic and will adjust its trajectory on the way to splashdown to within a 20-kilometre-diameter circle in the Pacific Ocean, where a ship will be waiting to recover it”. The reason you don’t see a “smaller” or “better” here is that the IXV is the only project of its kind in Europe. “If the IXV turns out to be successful, it could be a major turning point for Europe’s presence in space”. My first comment clearly referred to the stupid “salsiccia” remark (I bet it will all be called “humor” next, as opposed to humour…). “Lots of money” is a vague term and in this context would require you knowing how much ESA projects cost in general, and in particular (on the topic of waste) how much is spent every year on the “juste retour” principle. One should also factor in the competitiveness and time lost because of the “juste retour”, as well as the SMEs which never make the light of day because of it. It is this tremendous waste which has made Arianespace a sitting duck (100 Meuros – down from the previous 200 Meuros – in annual subsidies) for the likes of the brilliant Elon Musk. I can recall Germany saying the exact same thing about Vega when it was being proposed, despite Germany having zero involvement in, and contribution to, the programme.

Oh believe-you-me, there are plenty of Himmlers about, and they sure as heck don’t go by the name of Nelson Mandela. Indeed more often than not you can pinpoint nationalities even when the nationality is hidden, simply because certain types of ignorance/arrogance are unique.

“A 20km splash zone” … “Could be used as a re-usable Refueling platform for the ISS”.

I am sry but so far it’s Money for nothing like the old band says… (the re-usability is interesting when you have high value payload… not salsiccia and red-wine).

Still the fact that it is made in Italia is the most interesting part of that news.

I didn’t think such jaw-dropping stupid comments (salsiccia?) were even allowed on the forum. The IXV is very obviously not money for nothing, and the only thing you need to be sorry about is your blatant stupidity (you may have heard the Dutch joke about a Dutchman responding to a German tourist “Use both hands, it’s much better!”). In any case had the project been about “money for nothing” then ESA has an official policy which is upheld by only one country, Germany, known as “juste retour” which allows for “money for nothing” projects, and worse. However the IXV has zero German involvement, just like Vega, and as such has both technical merit and low costs. For those who are unfamiliar with the space scene, one only need consider projects suh as MAKO, Barracuda and Talarion to really get a feel for “money for nothing” projects. Then compare these with the M346, the Selex Falco and the Hammerhead.

The “something” is to serve as a testbed for a follow-on vehicle for Europe. Both the IXV and the PRIDE follow-on are sized to fit atop the Vega launcher. Prior to designing and building the IXV, the Pollux and Castor were also launched in Italy.
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