Jane Edwards
NASA has started testing an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft from Joby Aviation as part of the space agency’s Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign to collect data on the vehicle’s performance and acoustic profile to support simulation and modeling of future airspace concepts.
Davis Hackenberg, AAM mission integration manager at NASA, said in a statement published Wednesday that developmental testing as part of the campaign marks a critical step in the agency’s goals to speed up the AAM industry timeline.
“These testing scenarios will help inform gaps in current standards to benefit the industry’s progress of integrating AAM vehicles into the airspace,” Hackenberg added.
The flight testing of the eVTOL aircraft, which could be used in the future as air taxis, kicked off Monday and will run through Sept. 10 at Joby’s electric flight base in California.
NASA will use and analyze the data from the test flight to help inform the NC-1 campaign tests scheduled for 2022.
