Wisk Aero, NASA Sign 5-Year Partnership To Advance Sustainable Autonomous Flights (electrek.co) 4
Wisk Aero and NASA have signed a new five-year partnership to advance the safe integration of autonomous, all-electric aircraft into U.S. airspace, focusing on urban air mobility and regulated eVTOL flight. Electrek reports: Wisk Aero shared details of its refreshed partnership with NASA this week. The autonomous aviation specialist has signed a new five-year Non-Reimbursable Space Act Agreement (NRSAA) with the renowned space administration. Per Wisk, this new agreement focuses on critical research led by NASA's Air Traffic Management Exploration (ATM-X) project, which is centered around the advancement of commercialized autonomous aircraft travel under Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) in the National Airspace System (NAS).
As a specialist in autonomous, zero-emission aircraft, Wisk intends to continue its research alongside NASA to help regulators determine future eVTOL flight procedures and capabilities in the US. Regulatory developments on the to-do list for the latest NRSAA include optimizing airspace and route designs for highly automated UAM operations, establishing critical aircraft and ground-based safety system requirements for autonomous flight in urban environments, and establishing Air Traffic Control (ATC) communication protocols and procedures for seamless integration of future UAM aircraft. To achieve these goals, Wisk said its research with NASA will more specifically focus on utilizing advanced simulation and Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) flight environments, which combine live flights with a simulated airspace to enable researchers to assess future operations.
The teams from Wisk and NASA already met last month, continuing their research while beginning to determine how instrument flight procedures and advanced technologies can work together to enable safe autonomous passenger flights by 2030. Wisk Aero is a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing based in California. The aerospace manufacturer said last year that it expects its pilotless air-taxi to begin carrying passengers "later in the decade."
As a specialist in autonomous, zero-emission aircraft, Wisk intends to continue its research alongside NASA to help regulators determine future eVTOL flight procedures and capabilities in the US. Regulatory developments on the to-do list for the latest NRSAA include optimizing airspace and route designs for highly automated UAM operations, establishing critical aircraft and ground-based safety system requirements for autonomous flight in urban environments, and establishing Air Traffic Control (ATC) communication protocols and procedures for seamless integration of future UAM aircraft. To achieve these goals, Wisk said its research with NASA will more specifically focus on utilizing advanced simulation and Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) flight environments, which combine live flights with a simulated airspace to enable researchers to assess future operations.
The teams from Wisk and NASA already met last month, continuing their research while beginning to determine how instrument flight procedures and advanced technologies can work together to enable safe autonomous passenger flights by 2030. Wisk Aero is a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing based in California. The aerospace manufacturer said last year that it expects its pilotless air-taxi to begin carrying passengers "later in the decade."
Holy Acronyms, Batman! (Score:3)
In technical writing, I do try to follow a rule to define most acronyms, then parenthetically shorten them. NASA probably doesn't need that, since the acronym is probably better known than its full definition. eVTOL probably warrants an introduction, or at least a hyperlink to Wikipedia, to avoid the flood of "what the hell is eVTOL?!" comments below.
But I usually only define an acronym if I'm going to use the acronym again later. Most of these are defined and immediately discarded. NRSAA, IFR, NAS? Mentioned once then never again. Maybe it matters more in the cut-and-pasted press release, but all the jargon and parentheticals interrupt the flow and buries the important content.
Re: (Score:1)
Perfect marriage (Score:5, Insightful)
Clearly the fix to the critically understaffed U.S. air space network is adding unmanned drones with Boeing management expertise. What could go wrong?
Shutdown in 5,4,3,2,1 (Score:4, Insightful)