Jump Aero Welcomes Former NASA Autonomy Research Official Mark Skoog as Adviser

Mark Skoog, a former principal investigator for autonomy research at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, has joined the board of advisers of electric first responder aircraft developer Jump Aero.

Skoog will provide expertise in autonomous aircraft systems to support the development of an electric-powered vertical take-off and landing plane for emergency response missions, Jump Aero said Friday.

The newly appointed adviser brings to the company experience in leading an effort to certify autonomous vehicles that involve NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense, as well as the NASA Resilient Autonomy project that produced the Expandable Variable Autonomy Architecture system.

He also spent four decades supporting various NASA and U.S. Air Force research into fighters and unmanned aircraft vehicles, with a particular focus on full-vehicle autonomy and automatic collision avoidance systems.

“His deep experience with Run Time Assurance architectures and his development of fielded automatic ground collision avoidance will help Jump Aero save lives with our high-performance eVTOL aircraft,” said Carl Dietrich, founder and president of Jump Aero.