SpaceX Veterans Pass Milestone in Self-Flying Plane Race

Silicon Valley has been hard at work on the vexing challenge of autonomous cars. Now veterans of SpaceX and Tesla Inc. are announcing what they've been up to: a new startup working on self-flying planes for cargo. Reliable Robotics isn't trying to invent a new kind of aircraft. The idea is to bring autonomous capability to existing planes, starting with smaller aircraft that ferry cargo. In June, with approval from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Reliable Robotics demonstrated a fully automated remote landing of a Cessna 208 Caravan turboprop owned by FedEx Corp. Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Robert Rose led flight software at Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp., then led the early Autopilot program at Tesla Inc. before joining Google.