It seems that everyone is taking to the sky today, from international space forces, to billionaire entrepreneurs, to travelers booking trips with the world's first luxury space travel company.
Enter drone industry products and services company Red Cat Holdings Inc. (RCAT:NASDAQ), which develops and provides hardware-enabled software solutions, who today announced that "its subsidiary, Skypersonic Inc., a leader in Confined Space drone technology, has been awarded a five-year contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide drone and rover software, hardware and support for its Simulated Mars mission."
"Red Cat is honored to have Skypersonic working with NASA on this important scientific Mars project."
The firm advised that NASA is presently preparing for several analog missions designed to study year-long stays on the planet Mars. The planned simulated studies will be comprised of four crew members who will be living in a 1,700 sq. ft. habitat known as Mars Dune Alpha.
Over the course of the targeted one-year mission, the crew will be tasked with conducting various simulated spacewalks and numerous other simulated operations which will include the piloting of remote Skypersonic drones and rover vehicle(s) in an environment created to simulate activities on the surface and atmosphere of Mars. The report mentioned that "Skypersonic's Dronebox real-time transoceanic remote piloting platform will drive the piloting of both the drones and the rover."
Skypersonic Inc.'s CEO Giuseppe Santangelo stated, "We are excited NASA selected Skypersonic's technology to operate its drones and rover in the simulated Mars environment based on its functionality and to be involved in a project that is the precursor to human operations on other planets."
Red Cat Holdings' CEO Jeff Thompson commented, "Red Cat is honored to have Skypersonic working with NASA on this important scientific Mars project. We believe our patent pending remote pilot capability is a game changer in the drone industry…Remote piloting changes the entire drone ecosystem by reducing the biggest cost of drone fleet programs, the one pilot to one drone ratio."
Red Cat is based in Humacao, Puerto Rico and is a provider of products, services and software solutions to the drone industry. The firm is structured as a holding company that operates through four 100% owned subsidiary companies.
"[Red Cat] is structured as a holding company that operates through four 100% owned subsidiary companies."
The first of these companies is Fat Shark Holdings, which provides First Person View (FPV) video goggles to the drone industry. The second is Rotor Riot LLC, which markets and sells FPV drones and equipment mostly to individual consumers via its digital storefront. The third subsidiary is called Teal Drones, which provides commercial and government unmanned aerial vehicle technology. Teal Drone manufactures Golden Eagle, which the firm pointed out is "one of only five U.S. Department of Defense-approved drones designed for reconnaissance, public safety and inspection applications." The last of the four wholly owned companies is Skypersonic, which delivers software and hardware solutions that allow drones to carry out inspection services and gather and transmit data from thousands of miles away in remote locations where GPS is not presently available.
Red Cat Holdings started off the day with a market cap of around $128.8 million with approximately 53.7 million shares outstanding and a short interest of about 1.2%. RCAT shares opened 57% higher today at $3.77 (+$1.37, +57.08%) over Friday's $2.40 closing price. The stock traded today between $3.41 and $4.24 per share and closed at $3.60 (+$1.20, +50%).
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