Drone News: Senate Bill Release, 55 Drones Lost, Freefly Astro Prime, & Watts Innovations Shuts Down

First up is an update to the Chinese drone ban discussion. The
Senate version of the 2025 NDAA was released this week, without
the Countering CCP Drones Act language in the bill. This is a
great win, but we can’t let up. The NDAA is an act that must pass
every year and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said that
Congress plans to put together a China-focused bill later this
year. Please continue to educate and talk to your Senators and
Representatives. Let them know that this and other legislation
that would ban Chinese drones is not okay. To see how you can get
involved, visit the DAA’s website! Next up, a drone show in
Washington State lost 55 drones due to a malfunction. Starlight
Drone Shows was scheduled to perform a drone show over Angle
Lake, WA on the 4th of July. Despite initial GPS locks, 55 drones
out of 200 lost GPS and landed in the lake. None of the drones
flew away or went into the Geofence, showing that programming
worked as expected. The remainder of the show was cancelled and
145 other drones were successfully recovered. Starlight was in
charge of the Sun N Fun show that we attended in April in
Lakeland Florida with over 500 drones, which went flawlessly for
2 nights during the show. We’ll keep you updated if we see more
about what caused the GPS loss. Third up, Freefly has released
Astro Prime! The new Astro Prime has a 28-minute flight time with
a Sony LR1, a new battery system guaranteed to 500 cycles, and a
pro controller. Payloads include a Sony LR1 as a main camera with
additional payloads including Wiris cameras, Sony Alpha 7R-IV,
Green Valley Lidar, Sentra Multispectral cameras, Internal labs
LiDAR, Hovermap LiDAR, Rock Robotic LiDAR, Micasense
multispectral cameras, and more. The Astro Prime is also NDAA
Compliant and Blue UAS, made in Woodinville, WA. Pricing for the
Astro Prime is $27,000 for the aircraft only while a kit
including batteries, controller, and aircraft is $32,250. Pretty
cool aircraft from Freefly! Last up, Watts's Innovations appears
to have shut down and is "Shifting to new horizons". It's unclear
what the new horizons are, but we wish the folks over at Watt's
Innovations the very best! Have a great week, and we’ll see you
on Monday for the Live!
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/press-releases/sasc-completes-markup-of-national-defense-authorization-act-for-fiscal-year-2025
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/fy25_ndaa_bill_text.pdf
https://droneadvocacyalliance.com/
https://www.flyingmag.com/drones/questions-remain-after-july-fourth-drone-show-falls-apart/
https://dronexl.co/2024/07/08/freefly-astro-prime-drone/
https://store.freeflysystems.com/collections/astro
https://wattsinnovations.com/