The U.S. Space Force has bought two autonomous drone tractors to keep the lawn on its Florida space base nice and tidy. Space Force purchased the tractors from Sabanto, a company that specializes in automated farming equipment.
Sabanto’s pitch is that a small team can oversee automated tractors that can do lawn care and crop harvesting. Space Force won’t be harvesting crops, instead the 45th Civil Engineering Squadron will use the drone tractors to keep the lawns mowed at Patrick Space Force Base in Florida.
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Space Force is pitching the fancy tractors as a labor saving measure that shows the Guardians (the collective noun Space Force chose for its troops) devotion to innovation. “Automating our mowers will allow for the reallocation of labor hours to tackle other base priorities,” U.S. Air Force captain Andrew C. Johnson said in a press release. “By maximizing our labor hours, we will be able to complete more tasks in-house to support the space launch mission, our mission partners, and the base populace.”
Patrick Space Force Base is located on the eastern coast of Florida just below Cape Canaveral. The base boasts a 9,000 ft long asphalt runway but also campgrounds and parks used by the community that lives on the base. It also hosts the Manatee Cove Golf Course, a full 18 hole course that’s open to the public and dominates much of the base’s southern environs. We don’t know if the drone tractors will help maintain the golf course.
The U.S. Space Force did not return Motherboard’s request for comment.
