To that end, NASA is developing new deep space vehicles as part of that effort, but the space agency is also facing proposed budget cuts to its planetary exploration program — and particularly future unmanned Mars projects.
Yonatan led and managed a three-year UAV squadron establishment defense project and oversaw operational requirements and HMI in IAI's large-scale robotic unmanned "Taxibot" project.
Yet aviation history is littered with the wrecks of unmanned-aircraft projects—some of them barmy, others simply too far ahead of their time that were given a variety of names, including "aerial torpedo" and "remotely piloted vehicle".Occasionally UAVs found a valuable niche, for instance as targets for anti-aircraft gunnery.
With background as a military pilot in the IAF, Yonatan combined his experience as a user of complex military systems with design skills, to work in the fields of digital and mechanical interfaces, operational requirements, HMI and UX/UI on unmanned and manned projects with leading firms like Israel Aerospace Industries IAII) & Elbit Systems.
At the time, the United States was in a space race with the Soviet Union, and his responsibilities included unmanned and manned Project Mercury missions and Pioneer research probes of the solar system.
The main factors pushing up costs over the past year were a 12-month delay to the Watchkeeper unmanned aerial vehicle project and the decision to further extend the building programme for the new class of seven Astute attack submarines announced in last year's defence review.
Various projects involving unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were halted in neighbouring Kenya after regulators imposed bans, citing security concerns (new, more permissive regulations have since been drafted).
The MAAP is authorized to conduct projects using unmanned aerial systems at Virginia Tech with the express purpose of researching and gathering data that it will share with federal authorities.
In addition to Hawthorne serving as mission control for SpaceX, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in nearby Pasadena is in charge of the expansive unmanned deep space exploration projects underway, such as the current Mars Rover missions Opportunity, still operating since landing in early 2004, and Curiosity.
The HSFD program is planned as part of the National Aerospace Laboratory (NAL) and NASDA joint research for the H-II Orbiting Plane Experiment (HOPE-X), an unmanned re-entry vehicle project.
