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The FAA Runs the Invisible Operating System Above America
Every boarding pass depends on an institution most travelers notice only when something goes wrong. Now the FAA is trying to replace aging infrastructure while making room for drones, air taxis and a faster commercial space industry.
AMTI
AMTI rarely appears in the passenger journey, yet its engineers have spent decades inside the systems that guide aircraft and turn federal data into public facts. The company’s story is a lesson in the durable, unglamorous technology that government cannot simply switch off.
Buoyant Aero
Buoyant Aero builds zero-emissions, self-flying advertising blimps and rents them out as a turnkey service. Founded in 2020 by MIT hardware engineers Benjamin Claman and Joe Figura, the company (Y Combinator S21) started out designing unmanned cargo airships for middle-mile delivery, then turned the same self-flying blimp technology into 'Blimps-as-a-Service' - electric, camera-equipped ad blimps up to 35 feet long that fly pre-planned routes over events, retail launches and conferences for brands like Amazon Prime Video.
Airspace Defense
Airspace Defense (formerly Airspace Systems) is a Silicon Valley company that secures the low-altitude airspace where drones increasingly operate. Its patented Airspace Spatial platform fuses Remote ID, RF and electronic sensing, radar and AI analytics to detect, identify and track unauthorized drones and their operators at city scale. Founded in 2015 by a team from Apple, Google and Cisco, the company serves public safety agencies, national defense and major enterprises, and its autonomous Interceptor drone is held in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.