Altaeros Hosts Senator Maggie Hassan (D – NH) For Briefing On Autonomous Aerostats at R&D Center in Fremont NH

On Friday, August 2, 2024, Altaeros hosted Senator Maggie Hassan at their Research and Development Center in Fremont, New Hampshire. Altaeros CEO Ben Glass and Altaeros President Jeff Lloyd-Jones provided a detailed briefing about Altaeros’ technology and their $99m ID/IQ contract with the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection Agency. The briefing included a presentation, a tour of an ST-Flex system, and a live demonstration. The Senator launched the aerostat herself from Altaeros’ onsite Network Operations Center to start the demonstration, earning her aerostat wings!

Senator Maggie Hassan is a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee which serves as the principal oversight committee for the Department of Homeland Security and other critical homeland security priorities. Much of the discussion during the briefing centered around how autonomous operations enable operational efficiency and cost savings.

Altaeros’ autonomous control system, Aerostat Autopilot, takes care of all day-to-day flight operations which means that no ground crew is needed to keep the system running and multiple ST-Flex aerostats can be monitored from a single ops center. Autonomous aerostats also have much higher mission availability than traditional aerostats. These advantages will allow Border Protection agents to focus on their critical mission of securing the US Southern Border.