AeroVironment helicopter takes flight in Moorpark facility.
Engineers at AeroVironment Inc. showed off on Thursday the company’s terrestrial version of the helicopter it developed for NASA’s mission to Mars.
Nicknamed Terry, the terrestrial aircraft was flown for members of the media by Matt Keennon, the technical lead for rotor system development on the Mars Ingenuity helicopter program at the Moorpark facility of the Simi Valley unmanned aircraft manufacturer.
Ben Pipenberg, engineering lead on the helicopter program, explained before the flight that Terry has an airframe identical to Ingenuity and that structure composites and mechanism were built from the same molds as the Mars version.
Telerob machines. AeroVironment Inc. – the company that made the helicopter that flew on Mars – this week closed on its acquisition of a German company that makes unmanned ground vehicles.
The Simi Valley flying drone manufacturer paid $45.4 million for Telerob Gesellschaft für Fernhantierungstechnik mbH, in addition to paying off $9.4 million in Telerob’s debt.
Telerob now operates as a wholly-owned subsidiary of AeroVironment.
AeroVironment Chief Executive Wahid Nawabi said the deal marks a significant expansion of the company’s product portfolio from small and medium unmanned aircraft systems to tactical missile systems and now, unmanned ground vehicles.
“We welcome the talented Telerob team and look forward to delivering even more capability to our customers in the United States and more than 50 allied countries around the world,” Nawabi said in a statement.
AeroVironment Inc. this week announced it has acquired Telerob, a German company that makes remote-controlled ground robots and intelligent robotics systems.
AeroVironment, a manufacturer of unmanned aircraft in Simi Valley, has agreed to pay $45.4 million as well as to pay off $9.4 million of Telerob’s debt at closing. There is an additional earn-out option for Telerob’s primary shareholder that could total $7.3 million over the next three years if the company achieves specific milestones.
The deal was announced Tuesday. The acquired company is officially named Telerob Gesellschaft für Fernhantierungstechnik mbH.
AeroVironment Chief Executive Wahid Nawabi said Telerob’s advanced ground robotics compliment AeroVironment’s suite of tactical unmanned aircraft and missile systems and will help expand the services both companies can offer to customers.