Important Innovations Collection

  D AILY INNOVATION BRIEF                                                                                                          By Journalists Edward Kane & Maryanne Kane AI COMMENTARY DEBUTS AT WIMBLEDON                                                       Source:  Wimbledon Generative AI is making its debut at the world-famous Wimbledon tennis tournament and will provide game commentary on Wimbledon's app and website The All English Club announced daily highlight clips will be done by AI as well as text caption...

 4-Seat Air Taxi Going After FAA Certification                                             Source:  Wisk Aero New Form of Urban Commuting Mountain View, California-based Wisk Aero, which is financially backed by Boeing, just unveiled its 6th generation, 4-seat, autonomous air taxi.  The eVTOL is all-electric and a very sleek and smart new way to travel.  This is the design that the aerospace startup company intends to put into production and bring to market.  Wisk Aero is now seeking its FAA certification to fly passengers, along with certifications in New Zealand and elsewhere.  The company has performed more than 1600 test flights with its new air taxi.  It is clearly getting ready for take-off. Unique Autonomous Flying with Remote Human Backup The technology underpinning Wisk is highly advanced.  While the eVTOL...

 Aerospace Giant Invests a Further $450 Million in Wisk Aero                                                  Source:  Wisk Aero Autonomous Air Taxi Travel Silicon Valley, California-based air taxi startup Wisk Aero has raised $450 million from Boeing to build an air taxi flee, capable of 10 million flights per year.  Wisk has developed an electric, vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle that is capable of autonomous, pilot-less flying and can carry 2 passengers.  Wisk Aero is owned by Boeing and Google co-founder Larry Page's flying car company Kitty Hawk.  There are more than a dozen, major flying car companies globally.  But what distinguishes Wisk is its focus on autonomous flying vehicles.  The company says that autonomous functionality is being built into every aspect of the design and develo...

  Boeing & Porsche Partner on Flying Porsches                   Source:  Porsche & Boeing Flying Car Concepts Multinational Research Effort Porsche and Boeing are combining their respective sports car and aircraft expertise to create a flying Porsche for your personal commuting.  An international team of experts from Chicago based Boeing and German based Porsche are coming together to work on the development project in three R&D locations: Germany, Switzerland and the United States.  Porsche will design the vehicle's body.  Boeing will engineer and develop the airborne vehicle's capabilities.   Air Traffic Control and Regulatory Environment The two global companies are also taking on a much wider challenge to ensure the eventual rollout of their new flying car technologies and other flying cars and urban air mobility systems.  They intend to focus on air traffic control a...

Looking To Launch Starliner First Un-crewed, Then Crewed                                                       Source:  Boeing Spaceship with Checkered Past Boeing has built the Starliner, a next generation spacecraft, that's designed to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS).  It is an alternative vehicle to the highly successful SpaceX Crew Dragon that brought two astronauts back and forth to the ISS this past summer.   The Starliner has been plagued with development problems, test failures and schedule slippages.  Now it has lost its astronaut Commander Chris Ferguson.  Ferguson is an engineer who helped Boeing develop the space vehicle. December 2019 Test Starliner has experienced a rocky road to development.  In December 2019, during an un-crewed flight, software...

New Plane With World's Largest Engines                                                       Source:  Boeing FAA Clearance For GE Engines The Boeing 777X is the world's largest twin engine passenger plane.  General Electric GE 9X engines for the 777X just received FAA certification.  It is the largest engine ever put on a plane.  Its diameter is wider than a 737 fuselage.  The engine is huge but very efficient.  It cuts emissions by 30% and operational costs by 10%. This clears a big hurdle to bring the jet to market.  After thousands of hours of test flight hours, the GE 9x has been given FAA part 33 certification. Big Boost for GE This is a big boost for GE.  GE has orders and commitments for 600 plus GE 9X engines.  It has delivered 8 GE 9X test engines and 2 test spares for Boeing'...

Licensed, Patented, In Production                                                       Source:  Boeing "Magic" Wand That Zaps Viruses Onboard Planes & Elsewhere  Boeing has designed and developed an ultraviolet (UV) wand that quickly kills bacteria and viruses, including COVID-19 in airplane interiors.  Boeing just entered into a patent and technology licensing agreement with Florida based Healthe, Inc. to quickly manufacture and sell the technology to airlines and others.  The device is handheld and, according to Boeing, rapidly sanitizes passenger cabins and cockpit interiors killing any viruses.  The commercial wand is designed to help airlines and other public access areas combat COVID transmission, protect the public and restore public confidence. UV Wand Available This Fall Boeing says the tech...

Boeing & Porsche Developing Electric Flying Car Source:  Porsche, Boeing Flying Car Artist Rendering Moving into the 3rd Dimension of Travel Aerospace giant Boeing and luxury sports car maker Porsche have teamed up to create a premier electric flying car.  They say that they are exploring the premium urban air mobility market through the extension  of "urban traffic into the airspace." The car-plane combination is clearly targeted at big city commuters who would relish a lift above traffic snarled streets. Electric VTOL Their goal  is to create a fully electric vehicle that is capable of vertical takeoff and landings - a VTOL.  Both companies view this as a potentially key market segment of the future.  They expect the flying car market to take off in 2025. VW Going Electric Germany based Porsche is owned by Volkswagen, the world's largest automaker.  VW has committed to building 22 million electric vehicles across its brands over...

Wisk Aero Source:  Kitty Hawk's Cora Big Push for Sustained Electric Powered Personal & Taxi Flight Google founder Larry Page and his Kitty Hawk flying car startup are ramping up their alliance with aerospace giant Boeing to create electric flying vehicles.  The vehicles are being categorized as flying cars.  But Page and Boeing are targeting VTOLs, vertical takeoff and landing vehicles that are fully electric powered and autonomous.  The core R&D effort is Cora, an electric air taxi vehicle that was successfully tested recently in New Zealand.  The Kitty Hawk-Boeing R&D partnership has just been re-booted, re-branded and re-ignited as Wisk Aero and they are going full steam behind Cora. VTOLs Are the Future of Personal Mobility At the moment, Kitty Hawk's Cora is a semiautonomous electric vehicle that seats two passengers. Their goal is to make Cora fully autonomous and electric. Kitty Hawk believes Cora will be ideal to fly people as an a...

US Air Force's X-37B Spaceplane Successfully Lands After Record Orbit The US Air Force announced that its top secret, experimental spaceplane - the X-37B - just successfully landed at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in FL after a record flight. The spaceplane has been more than two years - 780 days - in orbital flight.  This is its longest test mission for a group of military technologies.  The X-37B is an experimental, test spaceship.  It was built by Boeing, is operated by the US Air Force and was launched into its latest mission aboard a SpaceX rocket. Clandestine Missions This is the spaceplane's 5th mission.  What the missions have entailed are for the most part a mystery.  They are top secret missions.  But we do know the purpose is to demonstrate new technologies, such as propulsion systems, avionics and spacecraft reentry systems for what the Air Force hopes will be a "reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform".  The vehicle will r...

New Partnership for 2020 Prototype Source:  Porsche AG Electric VTOL Vehicle US airplane manufacture Boeing and VW's luxury sports car unit Porsche are joining forces to develop an electric flying vehicle.  The goal is to develop a vehicle that can transport people in urban locations. The team will operate out of the US, Germany and Switzerland. VTOL The team is focused on a prototype for an electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle.  Essentially the flying car would take off and land like a helicopter.  Porsche says it's moving into the "third dimension of travel" - flying - by becoming "a leading brand for premier mobility". 2-Seater The vehicle will be a 2-seater to start and will include different flight modes from manual to autonomous.  Boeing and Porsche expect to present a fully developed prototype in 2020. Porsche believes this form of urban mobility will really gather steam from 2025 onwards.  And, it's already a very hot sect...

700 Days into a Secret Mission Source:  US Air Force X-37B Military Space Plane The US Air Force's X-37B space plane has been orbiting the Earth for the past 700 days.  No one, except top military and Trump Administration officials, knows exactly what the mission and the payload are.  We do know that the vehicle is robotic, solar-powered and reusable.  It launched on its fifth mission on September 7, 2017 and has been orbiting the Earth ever since. Mystery Missions What the X-37B is doing is the subject of speculation.  The mission is called Orbital Test Vehicle 5.  The Air Force will only say that the X-37B tests technologies for future reusable spacecraft and also has scientific experiments on board.  For the most part the payloads are classified.  But the Air Force did disclose that there is an experiment to see how oscillating heat pipes and certain electronics perform in space. Boeing Built The Air Force has two X-37Bs, built by...

Innovation Spacecrafts   Source:  SpaceX Dragon 2 NASA, Boeing and SpaceX Vehicle Tests and Crewed Flights 2019 is shaping up to be a very exciting year for space exploration.  A couple of key tests and crewed flights of highly advanced spacecrafts.  In January, SpaceX is scheduled to launch its Dragon 2 spacecraft on its first test flight.  There won't be any crew onboard until the summer when the spacecraft will ferry two US astronauts to the ISS (International Space Station). This will be the first launch of US astronauts from US soil since July 2011.  The launch will be made from Cape Canaveral, FL. It's a NASA and SpaceX exciting and new innovation mission into space. Starliner Boeing is going to conduct an un-crewed test flight of its CST-100 Starliner in March.  The first manned flight will happen in August. This spacecraft has been designed in conjunction with NASA for low Earth orbits to accommodate 7 passengers or for a mix of cre...