Testing

For the first time since it crashed last year, the world's largest aircraft has taken to the air again. Hybrid Air Vehicle​s put its Airlander 10 through its paces on a flight that lasted almost three hours and saw the huge airship make it back to base without a hitch.​​

Chrysler has completed the production of 100 Pacifica Hybrid minivans built specifically for self-driving use by Waymo. The news is the first of note to come out of Waymo since it was spun-out from being Google's autonomous car project, with the vehicles to be used for self-driving testing.​

​After unveiling it in February, Milrem and ST Kinetics have conducted the first live fire tests of their weaponized UGV, the THeMIS ADDER. Armed with a heavy machine gun, the UGV aced the tests, paving the way for robots that may eventually support or even replace ground troops on the battlefield.

Autonomous cars aren't the only vehicles being freed from the shackles of human control. In what is billed as the world's first research program on autonomous floating vessels in metropolitan areas, autonomous boats will soon be deployed in the winding canals of Amsterdam, Netherlands.

The first car built to take part in Volvo's Drive Me trial has rolled off the production line in Torslanda, Sweden. Described by Volvo as "the world's most ambitious and advanced public autonomous driving experiment," Drive Me will see real people using fully autonomous cars on public roads.

After a six month hiatus, ground tests have resumed on the third prototype (A/C3) of the AgustaWestland AW609 tiltrotor. Testing was suspended following a fatal air crash on October 30, 2015, which cost the lives of two test pilots.

The world's largest commercial aircraft engine has been started for the first time at GE Aviation's Peebles Test Operation in Ohio. According to GE, ground testing of the GE9X development engine will enable data to be gathered on the engine, which is due to enter service at the end the decade.

Blue Origin has taken a step closer to lifting into space by announcing that its BE‑3 rocket engine has completed acceptance testing, opening the door to its first flight. The BE-3 is part of Blue Origin's program to develop a completely reusable launch system.

Having invested US$1 billion in its 500,000 bhp 9HA Harriet gas turbine, GE had to fork over another US$185 million to build a full-load test bed that can handle the grid-busting output of Harriet, the world's largest and most powerful gas turbine.

ESA's IXV spaceplane has successfully carried out its 100-minute mission to test technology re-entry and navigation technology for the next generation of European spacecraft. Data from the launch will inform a wide range of endeavors, from re-supply trips to the ISS, to manned missions to Mars.

Audi is developing a system that will make never getting caught by a red light an everyday thing. The system communicates with an area's central traffic computer to calculate the best speed to catch green lights as a way of speeding up traffic while saving fuel and the the environment.

NASA is carrying out initial tests on a new, lighter spacesuit for use by the crew of the Orion spacecraft currently under development. The spacesuit will be used for extravehicular activities (EVAs), such as recovering samples from a relocated asteroid.