Also: NASA’s Perseverance Rover, UAV AG, Radio Altimeter Upgrade, FBI Counter-Drone Training NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman sent out a long and stunningly honest letter to employees after receiving a very long, very pointed list of findings from the Starship Crewed Flight Test incident in June 2024, which infamously left two astronauts ‘stuck’ on the International Space Station for 278 days longer than planned. The spacecraft at the center of the mishap, the Boeing Starliner, had already endured a rough past. The Air Force will host the DARPA Lift Challenge, being run by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from Aug. 2-9, 2026 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The event challenges innovators to build unmanned aircraft, or drones, with revolutionary payload capabilities. Currently drones are typically limited to carrying a payload that is only equal to or less than their own weight. To break this barrier, DARPA is offering $6.5 million in prizes to university students, inventors, and companies… EHang Holdings Limited provided a dual-feature aerial performance at the Hefei sub-venue of the 2026 China Media Group (CMG) Spring Festival Gala. The performance featured a formation of 16 EH216-S pilotless, human-carrying eVTOL aircraft alongside a drone light show involving 22,580 next-generation GhostDrone (“GD4.0”) unmanned aerial vehicles. All this — and MORE in today’s episode of Airborne-NextGen!!!
