Also: DoD Offering Prize Money, Starship V3, Spatial Disorientation, Shuttle Roulette The FAA and the FBI have established a “no-drone zone” February 8 for Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. There are inner-core restrictions within 10 nautical miles of the stadium and outer-ring restrictions within 30 nautical miles of Levi’s Stadium on game day. There are additional drone restrictions in downtown San Francisco at the Moscone Center, The Pearl, The Ferry Building, and Grace Cathedral during the days leading up to the event, February 3-7. A group of news and civil liberties organizations is pushing the FAA to give up on a new set of TFRs that place strict limitations on drones operating around a wide range of government facilities and mobile assets. The restrictions were published out of the blue on January 16, 2026. The TFRs prohibit all unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operations within 3,000 feet horizontally and 1,000 feet vertically of Department of Homeland Security facilities and “mobile assets…” The Department of War has moved into Task Area 3 of its hypersonic test program, passing the responsibility of providing launch services and reusable test vehicles to two lucky winners: Stratolaunch and Varda Space Industries. This hopes to allow the Pentagon to dramatically increase test tempo while lowering per-flight costs and reducing development risk. All this — and MORE in today’s episode of Airborne-NextGen!!!
