NASA has teamed up with AeroVironment and Aerostar to unveil a groundbreaking air traffic management concept, marking a significant step towards enabling safe flight operations at higher altitudes. This initiative aims to revolutionize web security, expedite disaster recovery, enhance scientific exploration, and push the boundaries of supersonic flight capabilities. The concept is referred to as a Higher-Class Executive Travel Management (ETM).
Currently, there is a lack of a well-established visitor management system or guidelines governing operations at altitudes above 18,300 meters (60,000 feet). Until recently, there was no pressing need for a robust visitor management system in this airspace. Due to the limitations imposed by the aircraft’s engines, industrial planes are unable to operate effectively at such extreme altitudes.
Notwithstanding recent advancements in aircraft design, energy, and propulsion methods, it is becoming increasingly feasible for high-altitude, long-endurance vehicles – such as balloons, airships, and solar-powered planes – to cruise miles above our heads, providing radio relay capabilities for disaster response, gathering atmospheric data, and more.
Before introducing new aircraft, it is crucial that operators develop strategies to manage their operations efficiently without overwhelming air traffic infrastructure and personnel?
“At NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, Kenneth Freeman, a subproject supervisor, emphasized that the team is working to securely expand high-altitude missions beyond what is currently possible.” “With routine remote-piloted high-altitude operations, we can significantly enhance our understanding of the planet by conducting extra-detailed monitoring of local weather patterns, providing real-time web protection to underserved areas, advancing supersonic flight analytics, and more.”
Visitors to high-altitude areas are currently managed through a manual process that handles each instance individually. For efficient access to certain portions of Class E airspace, pilots are advised to coordinate with Air Visitors Management in advance. No other aircraft may penetrate this upper-air traffic zone? NASA researchers caution that this technique cannot meet the growing need for high-altitude missions.
NASA has collaborated with its partners to develop an Enhanced Traffic Management (ETM) visitor management system, which allows aircraft to autonomously share their location and flight plans, ensuring safe separation between planes.
During the most recent visitor management simulation at the Airspace Operations Laboratory in Ames, real-time data from multiple aircraft was seamlessly displayed across numerous control panels and transmitted to linked computers remote from the location. This information includes a plane’s location, wellbeing, flight plans, and more. Scientists investigated the collaboration between AeroVironment’s fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and Aerostar’s high-altitude weather balloon operating in the stratosphere, exploring their interactions at extraordinary elevations. Planes sharing information on prime altitude, location, and flight plans with nearby aircraft through the ETM visitors administration system.
The integration of digital information sharing enabled high-altitude vehicle operators, including those at Aerostar and AeroVironment, to harmonize their operations within a common virtual airspace, eliminating the need for individual clearance requests with air traffic control. As a result, plane operators have been able to achieve their objectives, facilitated by the deployment of wireless communication relays.
In this simulation, the visitor management system successfully demonstrated its ability to efficiently manage a diverse range of high-altitude aircraft operations within the same simulated airspace, marking a significant milestone in its development and validation. Subsequently, NASA scientists will collaborate with partners to further verify this method through a diverse array of real-world flight tests using high-altitude aircraft in shared airspace.
The Higher-Class E Visitors Administration concept was conceptualized in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration and high-altitude platform industry partners under the leadership of NASA’s Ames Research Center.
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