CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Lone Star Unmanned Aircraft System Center of Excellence at the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi hopes to expand the program to a building at the Corpus Christi International Airport (CCIA).
The unmanned drone program is seeking approval from Corpus Christi City Council to serve as an on-airport base of operations – the first of its kind in the United States -- for the growing program.
Officials said expanding the program to the CCIA would provide a financial boost and could attract related industry partners to Texas.
City council will vote on a first-reading ordinance to approve the program’s expansion Sept. 19 during its regularly-scheduled meeting. The second reading is scheduled for Oct. 10.
The Lone Star Unmanned Aircraft System Center of Excellence program was established as a research center at TAMU-CC in Fall 2013, and is one of seven Federal Aviation Administration’s UAS testing sites in the United States.
The airport building the program looks to use is a former fire station that was converted to a storage building for airport equipment.
Multiskilled journalist Michael Gibson contributed to this story.
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