Paris: The European Space Agency and the European Defense Agency (EDA) will extend their joint work on introducing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into civil European airspace through a 2.4 million-euro ($3.4 million) campaign to test UAV command and control via satellite. The second phase of the DeSIRE project, or Demonstration of Satellites enabling the Insertion of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems in Europe, follows flights in 2013 of an Israeli-built Heron UAV flying unsegregated air routes over Spain.
Under the new agreement, ESA and EDA will test the use of UAVs for environmental monitoring and maritime surveillance beyond the line of sight of ground antennas to manage the UAVs’ performance.
Source: Space news
