The X-47B prototype on Tuesday flew off an aircraft carrier and into the history books. Today's achievement, the first-ever catapult launch of an unmanned aircraft from the flight deck of a carrier, promises to open up a new chapter in the annals of naval aviation. Photo: An X-47B pilot-less drone combat aircraft is launched for the first time off an aircraft carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Virginia, May 14, 2013. The U.S. Navy made aviation history on Tuesday by catapulting an unmanned jet off an aircraft carrier for the first time, testing a long-range, stealthy, bat-winged plane that represents a jump forward in drone technology. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)

A photojournalist is silhouetted by the sunset as a lightning strike at a resort affected by Saturday's tsunami in Carita, Indonesia, Tuesday, December 25, 2018. Christmas celebrations traditionally filled with laughter and uplifting music were replaced by somber prayers for tsunami victims in an area hit without warning following a volcanic eruption, leaving hundreds of people dead and thousands homeless in disaster-prone Indonesia. (Photo by Fauzy Chaniago/AP Photo)

Actress Oh In-Hae and director Ahn Sang-Su arrives for the opening ceremony of the 16th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) during the press conference at the Busan Cinema Center on October 6, 2011 in Busan, South Korea. The biggest film festival in Asia showcases 307 films from 70 countries and runs from October 6-14. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

Jerome Holcomb of Birmingham, Ala., posses for a photo atop a longhorn steer at the Fort Worth Stockyards Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Fort Worth, Texas. The mask mandate to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has been cancelled in Texas. Holcomb said he was tired of wearing a face mask so he came to visit Fort Worth after the Alabama governor extended the mask mandate in his home state. (Photo by L.M. Otero/AP Photo)

A participant of the sled dogs race in action with the dogs in Stroehen (Lower Saxony), Germany, 18 October 2015. It is the first round of the North German Championship. (Photo by Peter Steffen/EPA)

This photo of an elephant seal and Gentoo penguin shot by Andrew James in Yankee Harbour, Antarctica. (Photo by Andrew James/Travel Photographer of the Year)

Men walk towards law enforcement with their hands up on August 24, 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A second night of civil unrest occurred after the shooting of Jacob Blake, 29, on August 23. Blake was shot multiple times in the back by Wisconsin police officers after attempting to enter into the drivers side of a vehicle. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket breaks the sound barrier as it launches the next batch of Starlink satellites (mission; Starlink 6-7), at 12:01 AM from Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida on Friday, July 28, 2023. (Photo by Joe Marino/UPI/Rex Features/Shutterstock)