Drone News: Six Years of Drone News, New NASA Drone, and Some DJI Leaks.

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First up this week, today marks 6 years of drone news,
uninterrupted! A big thanks to YOU for making this possible! And
yes, this is our brand new set for the news update. In the last 6
years, we've gotten over 3,400,000 views on our news update
videos and enrolled over 132,000 people in our Part 107 Made Easy
course which represents almost 1/3 of all remote pilots, 400,000
students in total, and 750,000 course enrollments. Not to mention
our exclusive Pilot Institute Community, with over 80,000 pilots.
A big thanks to everyone for making this possible. We've also got
many more courses and videos coming soon!





Next up this week NASA is pushing the boundaries of exploration
with its Dragonfly mission. This isn't your average quadcopter;
we're talking about a car-sized rotorcraft designed to fly on
Titan, Saturn's largest moon! This ambitious mission is scheduled
to launch in 2028 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, with an
estimated arrival at Titan in 2034.





Dragonfly's primary target is the Selk Crater, a fascinating
50-mile-wide impact site. Scientists believe this crater might
have once held a pool of liquid water, potentially for hundreds
or even thousands of years, which could have mixed with Titan's
rich organic compounds. Now, to be clear, as Zibi Turtle,
Dragonfly’s principal investigator, put it, “Dragonfly isn’t a
mission to detect life—it’s a mission to investigate the
chemistry that came before biology.”





So, why does this matter to us drone pilots here on Earth? Well,
the technological leaps required for Dragonfly could be HUGE for
our drone industry! To operate a complex quadcopter in Titan's
extreme environment – with its dense atmosphere, low gravity, and
insane cold – NASA must develop breakthroughs in autonomy,
navigation, and battery tech. Imagine that tech trickling down to
the drones we fly! I’m really excited to see how this mission
pushes UAV innovation forward.





Next up, According to a report from DroneXL, we might be seeing a
DJI Mini 5 Pro, an Avata 3, something called a Neo 2 FPV drone,
and even an Osmo Nano. Now, these are strictly RUMORS at this
stage, and the report didn't include concrete details or specific
leaked specifications, so they are still under wraps. For a Mini
5 Pro, many are hoping DJI could push the envelope further in the
sub-250 gram category. Mini 5 rumors include a 1” sensors, LiDAR
obstacles avoidance, and O4+. The Mini 5 also hit the FCC
database recently.


For the Avata 3, building on the success of its predecessors,
we'd anticipate upgrades to the camera system for crisper FPV
footage. We might also see DJI's O4+ transmission for better
range and stability, and of course, any improvements to flight
duration and durability would be fantastic.


The 'Neo 2 FPV' is a bit more mysterious – could this be a new
specialized FPV offering?


And an Osmo Nano sounds intriguing, possibly a super compact
gimbal for on-the-go stabilization. Again, this is PURE
speculation, but if even some of these products materialize with
DJI's usual innovation, it could be an exciting lineup for our
drone industry.





And over on Post flight this week, we’ll talk about more news
that didn’t make the cut here including: John Deere Acquiring
Sentra Drones, The FAA approving Amazon to deliver Lithium
products, and a DJI M600 that was used to film the ongoing
Kīlauea.